Don Winslow left the lands of the Mexican drug trade of the Cartel trilogy to go back to the northeast, to Rhode Island (The City in flames). Where another war rages, between “spaghetti eaters” (the Italians) and “potato eaters” (the Irish). Two friend-enemy mafias whose story he weaves on the plot of Virgil’s Aeneid. “The Greeks invented the thriller,” Winslow once told us at his home near San Diego. Where this second volume takes us. Its hero, Danny Ryan, Aeneas of modern times, is on the run, pursued by the clan of Italians and the local police. Now that he is a widower and a solo dad, his epic, Glock in hand, is divided between protecting his family and attempting a final, staged and enormous blow – at least 40 million evaded from the Mexicans, on behalf of the Federals, in exchange for his immunity… Between blood ties, thirst for revenge and powerful art of shadow warfare, the immense Don Winslow signs a sumptuous new novel, a City of Dreams, ready to complete yours.
City of Dreams by Don Winslow. Translated from English (United States) by Jean Esch (Harper Collins, 400 pages, €22.90). Volume I, The City in Flames, was published by Harper Collins paperback.
Killer Bit: Danny should have killed them. All of them. He knows it now. He should have known it on the spot: when you take forty million in cash from people, gun in hand, you have to kill them to prevent them from getting revenge. You have to take their money and their lives. But that’s not in Danny Ryan’s nature. That’s always been his problem: he believes in God. Heaven, hell and all that happy bullshit. Yes, he liquidated a few guys, but it was always in situations where he had to save his own skin. This robbery did not fall into this category. These guys were all lying on the ground, tied up with cable ties, helpless, and his guys wanted to shoot them in the head. Execution style, as they said. Kevin Coombs. Not wrong, thought Danny. Popeye Abbarca had the sad reputation of bringing down not only those who scammed him, but also their entire family. Popeye’s right-hand man even told Danny. Lying on the ground, he lifted his head and said, smiling, “You and all your families. Mute. Slowly. We came for the money, not to cause a massacre, Danny told himself. Tens of millions of dollars in cash, to start new lives, instead of taking old ones back. The killings had to stop. So he took the money and let them live. Now he realizes that was a mistake. He’s on his knees, a gun stuck to his head. The others are bound hand and foot, tied to poles, and throw him pleading, terrified looks. It is cold in the desert at dawn, and Danny is shivering, kneeling in the sand, despite the appearance of the sun, the moon being nothing more than an evanescent memory. A dream. Maybe life is just that, he thought: a dream. Or a nightmare. For even in dreams you pay the price for your sins. A pungent smell pierces the cool, crisp air. Gasoline. Danny hears these words, “You’ll watch them burn alive. And then it will be your turn. So that’s how I’m going to die, he thinks. The dream is fading. The long night is over. The day is breaking.
