The Power of the Dog

by Don Winslow

Paperback, 2006

Call number

MYST WIN

Collection

Genres

Publication

Vintage Crime/Black Lizard (2006), Edition: Reprint, 560 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. HTML: This explosive novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. Art Montana is an obsessive DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Parada is a powerful and incorruptible Catholic priest. Callan is an Irish kid from Hell's Kitchen who grows up to be a merciless hit man. And they are all trapped in the world of the Mexican drug Federación. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tijuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you've never seen it.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Stahl-Ricco
Overall, I liked this read! It basically is about the "drug wars" between the United States and several countries, mostly Mexico, south of the border. And specifically, it's about agent Art Keller versus the Barrera family. It is a very thorough book, which is both it's strength and it's weakness.
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Strength because I really got into the characters. Weakness because it is very long, and sometimes feels drawn out and almost has too much information! The book also has a lot of political opinions on the war on drugs, at times too much for me to feel that it was really part of the plot, and more of the author wanting to get his opinion down on paper. Still and all, it is a good read and I did like how all the characters, and information, come together in the closing chapters! I definitely will read the next one!
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LibraryThing member BeckyJG
Don Winslow's third book, after The Death & Life of Bobby Z and California Fire & Life, moves him resoundingly into the realm of writers like Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, George Pelecanos, writers who practice their craft within the strictures of a certain genre but who through their artistry
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soar above the genre. Don't get me wrong--I'm no snob; I love genre fiction, go for weeks at a time reading it exclusively. I revel in it, I appreciate it for what it is, and sometimes I mainline it, like a drug. All of this makes me appreciate it even more when someone like Winslow takes it to the next level.

The Power of the Dog is a novel about the rise of the Mexican drug trade, from the seventies up to the present day. It is as much driven by character as it is driven by action--but believe me, there's no shortage of action. We watch as the American DEA in its early years unwittingly lays the groundwork for a thriving Mexican drug underworld. Mexico is divided up into three main areas, each run by its own crime boss, all of whom are ruled by an American-style entrepreneur, schooled in the ways of American big business, running his crime world like a corporation. It's a chilling world in which the logical conclusion of any given business or personal transaction is the one which yields the most money or power, even if that road runs red with the blood of family and friends, as well as the blood of enemies.

The Power of the Dog is a book that will haunt you for days afterward, both by the power of the story told and the beauty of the words used to tell it.
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LibraryThing member ozzieslim
I absolutely loved this book. Hands down, without any equivocating, this is a five star book. I literally could not put it down. I had the novel blues after I finished – you know the ailment where you just finished a really fabo, on time novel and then its over? I was lucky, I found a couple of
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books afterwards that brought me down slowly but I am on a mission to read everything this author has written.

As for this book....the story is very multi-layered and complex. Art is a DEA agent. He is Mexican American and grew up in the barrios of San Diego. He has partners that he is enmeshed with and cares about but at the same time, he is on a mission to bring down the Mexican drug cartels. Through the course of the novel, he will travel the world following the money and the drugs and the players. He will lose some of himself, destroy some relationships and develop others. He has a complicated history with some of the members of the cartel.

The cartel building part of the story was a la 'The Godfather”. One corrupt cop has figured out how to use the political and military regimes and machines in Mexico to exploit the black market drug trade. What starts off as penny ante dealing, evolves over a thirty year period that the book covers, into a multi-headed hydra. Three individuals, two of them being the Don's nephews, control all of Mexico and the United States with their hands also dipped into several Central American countries.

Into this mix enter the CIA and the Italian Mafia. Both have vested interests in keeping the drug trade active and healthy. The CIA does so for both control and to create political stability or instability in countries where the United States has particular interests. NAFTA trade plays a role, as does supporting or decimating regimes that no longer serve United States interests. The Italian Mafia is working with both the cartels and the CIA. Their interests are primarily monetary but there is a whole other sub-story involving Irish and Italian control of Boston neighborhoods as well as the development in all groups of hit men.

Not to be eliminated from the complexities, the Catholic Church also plays an important role in the story. The main Padre is a powerful priest whose strong community development and social justice vision, not only pits him against the cartels but also propels his own position into an upward trajectory through the involvement and intervention of the Vatican. The Vatican benefits as the cartel and the mafia are highly Roman Catholic in nature and are often providing huge amounts of money to secure the cooperation of the church.

The last player in this piece is a high end escort. She goes from being a small time school girl prostitute in San Diego to being a highly paid companion of many of the men in power. In addition to this, she develops a very close relationship with the priest. Her character study is a real look into what money can and cannot buy as well as the complexities of the relationships and connections she makes in the world of the drug trade.

Although a work of fiction, this book really gets into the meat and potatoes of how these cartels operate and what each stakeholder has invested right down to their very lives. Great character studies, a ton of action and a wonderfully complicated plot that really engages you as a reader. The book was not easy to put down and I have to confess there were many nights when I was up until dawn because I just could not stop reading. I fully intend to get everything this author has done. What a writer!!! A five star book is hard to find and this is a five plus plus in my opinion!
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LibraryThing member maneekuhi
543 pages. And I still don't know "Power of the Dog" means. Epic (30 year) story of the drug war, specifically in Mexico, but it includes everything - Mafia in NY, bribery on an incredible scale, militias in Colombia, prostitution, an earthquake, kidnappings, communism in Latin America, Chinese
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AK-47's bought in Hong Kong, and murders everywhere. Incredible violence, and each scene is on a huge scale. So it seems that every time there is a killing, there are at least half a dozen victims, often twice as many. Or the law arrive after the fact and see the remains of torture, beheadings, rapes, burnings, castrations etc etc. Not realistic ? - a week ago at the same time 1/8/11 as the Tucson shootings, 10 bodies were found in a parking lot of a mall in Acapulco, nine of which were beheaded (the Washington Post gave the story about 150 words). Everyone is guilty, everyone has a secret agenda,there are no white knights, especially in Mexican government. But is this real, or just fantasy. Some exaggerated version of history? I was intrigued by several of the scenes because many rang a bell, and so I researched several of the more spectacular killings, and found similarities with many incidents reported in the news over the last 30 years. This is a scary book, especially for those of us who are so remote from the drug scene, from the Mexican border. But it's a book well worth reading and it's a very well written book.
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LibraryThing member gmmartz
Don Winslow's 'The Power of the Dog' is an awesome accomplishment, a fictional account covering both the micro and macro aspects of the illegal drug trade/War on Drugs between the US and Mexico as seen through the eyes of some key participants. Combined with its successor, The Cartel, it pretty
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much tells you how incredibly complex, screwed up, and insoluble the drug issue is in this country. Why Winslow's two books haven't yet been made into either a Netflix series or a giant 'The Godfather'-type movie franchise is beyond me. If you want action, violence, sex, great characters, large themes, sagas of redemption and betrayal....you've come to the right place.

In the big picture, the story is the US vs. Mexico in the Reagan-era 'War on Drugs'. That's the overarching background, but it's really Art Keller, the maniacally focused American leader of the charge vs. the Barrera brothers, the Mexican drug supply chain owners. There are many, many other players involved: hookers, compromised agents, politicos covering their asses, bent law enforcers, bought-off politicians, Irish hit men, mafia guys.... Typically, a novel of this nature will focus on a very narrow piece of the pie. Winslow goes oppo on that.... the nature of the topic is too complex and the actions of the characters too inscrutable without great detail, and he provides that in spades.

I have to admit that I've become a fan of Winslow's writing style. He changes narrators often and tends to write in their respective voices, so you not only get multiple viewpoints (often overlapping) but also different uses of the language. His dialogue is extremely believable and he obviously has done his research on this huge topic. He's a strong writer but an even stronger story teller.

The Power of the Dog is a great novel, but not for the squeamish and certainly not for anyone who thinks of the drug issue in black and white terms.
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LibraryThing member bumblearse
Winslow has been compared to Ellroy; in truth he doesn't have the style, although the book flows beautifully smoothly through 25 years of history, but he does have the sweep and complexity. A really satisfying character-driven story that keeps you hooked until the very end.
LibraryThing member bumblearse
Winslow has been compared to Ellroy; in truth he doesn't have the style, although the book flows beautifully smoothly through 25 years of history, but he does have the sweep and complexity. A really satisfying character-driven story that keeps you hooked until the very end.
LibraryThing member SarahStenhouse
Drug cartels, love, prostitution, international political corruption and lots of violence. The human face of an inhuman trade and the overwhelming forces of greed and cruelty.
LibraryThing member polarbear123
Epic story spanning several decades and told from several points of views. If you are into your gangster films like goodfellas then you will enjoy. Unbelievably well crafted tale.
LibraryThing member homericgeek
This is a long book, but the length (as Jane Smiley writes about in 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel) is a promise, not a threat.

The action is quick, the tension is high and the conflict is believable. There are neither purely good guys, nor completely evil bad guys. It seems like Winslow covered
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everything from family to feigned friendship, from faith to agnosticism, from obsession to oppression.

The War on Drugs plays a major role in this novel, as does the U.S.'s use of that travesty and failure to maintain a large distance from Communist countries: in other words, to keep them from moving in right next door.

Winslow's characters are both likeable and not. Some, I wanted to side with initially, only to rethink my loyalty later. It really is a great ride through the psychology of trying to reach a goal that may be, when all is said and done, unobtainable: e.g. the War on Drugs. It's like a war against dirt, it is never-ending and demands constant vigilance (which, if truth be told, is a waste of time, i.e. dirt will win). I'm not making a judgment on drugs (or on dirt, for that matter), but on the ways in which the U.S. has "tried" to stop the flow of those drugs. Billions of dollars have been spent, and many of those billions have ended up in the pockets of the heads of the very drug cartels that were the targets of this fiasco called a war.

Winslow does an excellent job of presenting the history necessary to tell his story without dragging in so much as to make it a boring read. He uses what is necessary, leaves out what isn't.

At the very least, this novel has made me think about the U.S. relations with our neighbors to the south in North, Central and South America. Was the War on Drugs really just a way for the U.S. to keep Communists from moving in right next door? Did the U.S. supply anti-communist fighters, who also happened to be part of the huge flow of drugs into and money out of the U.S.? Will you read this book and wrestle with your own questions about these issues?

That's all I can suggest: read it.
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LibraryThing member BookWallah
Dark, gripping and morally conflicted novel. Epic sweep through thirty years of fighting the drug trade flowing North from Mexico. There are few good guys, and no one comes away unscathed. Wee bit political when dealing with CIA forays into Central America, but otherwise a straight up heart
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thumping page turner. Highly recommended for all who like dark crime thrillers and can stomach the violence.
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LibraryThing member Darcia
Rating this book is extremely difficult for me. Parts were an absolute 5-star read. Certain things annoyed me so much, I wanted to put the book down and forget about it. Much of the book was some combination of those two extremes.

I love that Winslow tackled our failed war on drugs, and the
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government deception that has propelled it. The story is well researched and contains sections of flawless writing.

This one book takes on decades of the drug war and, because of that, is long, sometimes dragged out, and maybe a bit too ambitious. At times it felt more like nonfiction rhetoric on government corruption than a fictional story.

We have several plot lines, even more subplots, and dozens of characters, all with POV parts. I felt like I needed a chart to keep up with them all. POV characters switched often. By mid-book, they were switching within the same paragraph, which I found jarring. And most of the characters were bad guys, giving me little to care about in terms of who made it through the battles.

For the most part, I felt like there was too much going on for me to latch on to any one story.

I have a lot of respect for Winslow's ambition here. The truth within these pages is a powerful story that needs to be told. I think it would have worked better had he told the story in a tighter POV, with two or three characters we could follow closely, or dropped the attempt at fictionalization altogether.
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LibraryThing member Novak
My feeling was that this book, dated 2006, was brilliant but a bit far-fetched.
As I was reading the last few pages in 2010 the news came of the capture of a drug hit-man in Mexico who decapitated his victims and left others hanging under a bridge near the fenced off American border. He is 14 years
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of age.
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LibraryThing member DaveWilde
The Power of the Dog is a big, sweeping, epic tale. It is only 560 pages long and I say only because this novel is so intoxicatingly good that it is difficult to put it aside even for a moment. It is a novel not just about the drug war against the Mexican cartels, based loosely on real events, but
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it is a story about all kinds of people caught up in the war from the DEA agents who lost their regular lives, but not their souls, to the young kids who grew up to be killers, both on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen and in the barrios of San Diego and Tijuana. It is a novel that talks about the brutal corruption of Mexican politics and the compromised culture of just about everything because of the drug money and violence and about all the people swept up into it and the victims of the ever-growing violence.

It is a story that is at times critical of the War on Drugs, citing it as ineffective, compromised by other interests such as funneling weapons and dollars against Communist incursions into Central America and Colombia. It is a story about how difficult it has been to control this situation which has grown more and more out of control. But, the novel tells the story not as a news account but as a fictional story with real characters who have real connections to each other and histories and cultures. Winslow traces the history of these characters from their early years as they cross paths time and time again. DEA Agent Art Keller is the star of the novel and he meets frustration time and time again as his goal of removing the head of the snake is frustrated time and time again by politics and corruption and dirty dealings. This is an incredibly well-written, richly drawn, novel that is worth more than one read.
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LibraryThing member norinrad10
This is hands down one of the most depressing books I've ever read. Yet it easily makes my top ten best. It is the story of the American Drug War, specifically as it relates to Mexico. It's fictional but Winslow captures it all and creates characters that will resonate with you long after you
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finish. Even better he'll have you scrambling to Google to see just how true certain events are. Great writer and great book.
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LibraryThing member simonson
A great tale of the movement of drugs through geography and time and the intertwining of the forces of law and disorder. Almost beating Ellroy as a master weaver of fact and fiction in crime.
LibraryThing member cathy_k
The war on (please insert horrible thing to be fought against here) the U.S. are fighting is - big surprise - a war that won't work, a war that won't be won, a useless war because it tackles symptoms rather than root causes and allies itself with evil to try to win.
See - well see all sorts of
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things if you watch the news.
This book is about the useless and at times hilarious war on drugs. Three lives are followed over a time period of 30 years. There's a DEA agent who yet has to find out how futile it all is, there's a high-class prostitute with more moral fibre and courage (not to mention intelligence) than 90% of our politicians world wide, there's a killer caught in the organized crime scene as a teenager and now there's no way out, no way back to 'normal'.
Good, gripping read.
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LibraryThing member uryjm
This is a cracker of a novel, ambitious in its scope and multi-layered in plot and characterisation. It's quite retro in it's subject matter, recalling the days of Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, the Cold War communists, the American Mafia and then throws the Irish, the Neo-cons, the Mexican banditos
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and even Opus Dei into the mix. The plot thunders along and the violence levels are acute, recalling the worst excesses of James Ellroy or James Lee Burke and sometimes verging toward horror as opposed to crime fiction. But it's well-written stuff and the author is able to carry it off, managing to shock and disturb the reader into considering what really did go on with the Right Wing Death Squads in Central America, never mind drugs and the Columbians. The only weak part of the novel was found in the female characters who I found to be a bit one-dimensional in the uber-macho world created. Apart from that, this is a great read and I too will be reading more of this author's output in future.
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LibraryThing member carolfoisset
My first Winslow book - and Wow! Read it for book club - would never have picked it up on my own. When I started it I thought this isn't for me, but the writing and the story sucked me in. It is a fantastic book, and unfortunately the gruesome scenes fit the reality of the cartels. I now want to
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read the next two in this trilogy.
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LibraryThing member she_climber
I am in love with this author. Mexican drug cartels, murder, love, family, government cover-ups, high-price call girls, Italian mafia. This is a huge epic novel that has it all. And it's the first of a series. I'll be diving back in for more soon.
LibraryThing member Rani
Awesome rollicking and addictive read about the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels trafficking coke to the US and the US' 'War on Drugs'. Once you start reading, it's hard to stop.
LibraryThing member librarylord99
This and the Cartel are two of my favorite books of the last decade. The ice pick in the shin scene will scar you in the same way that the "Squeal like a pig" scene did in Deliverance.
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow is the first book in a crime thriller trilogy based on the DEA’s involvement with the War on Drugs. This is a very intricate story that covers the rise of the Drug Cartels in Mexico over the curse of 25 years. The author spent over six years in research so much
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of this story is based on actual events.

The story unfolds through the eyes of various characters including a senior DEA agent, a drug lord, a courtesan and an Irish killer-for-hire. Art Keller is a DEA agent who wants to do the right thing, but he becomes obsessed with his desire for revenge. Adan Barrera and his brother Raul follow their uncle into the drug business, where they find they excel as crime lords. Nora Hayden was a California girl who learned how to use the men that were attracted by her great beauty and Sean Callahan is an Irish kid from Hell’s Kitchen who grows into his role as a stone-faced killer.

The Power of the Dog is a very powerful read that maps the labyrinth that is the international drug trade. The author takes you deep inside this dark world, riddled with corruption, betrayal, greed and revenge. There is a lot to take in and therefore the book is rather long but believe me, I was glued to this compelling story. Be warned however, I expect this book could be too brutal for some as many people die, some quite horribly. Personally, I was drawn in by the author’s strong voice and his well crafted story.
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LibraryThing member LibroLindsay
I need to let this go. It's taken me two months to get only a little more than halfway through it, and I think I've figured I'm not much of a typical crime/mobster book kind of girl. Plus, I find the sexism really disturbing.
LibraryThing member addunn3
A long bloody tale of the trafficking of drugs through the southern border. Interesting reading with a mix of action, Mafia, prostitutes, CIA, drug cartels, corrupt government officials, etc. If half of the background information is true, we might as well make drugs legal and skip all the violence,
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because we are loosing the war on drugs!
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Awards

Macavity Award (Nominee — Novel — 2006)
Barry Award (Nominee — Novel — 2006)
Dilys Award (Nominee — 2006)
Hammett Prize (Nominee — 2005)

Pages

560

ISBN

1400096936 / 9781400096930
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