The Force
by Don Winslow, Harper Collins, £18.99
In The Power of the Dog and The Cartel, Don Winslow told the story of America’s war on drugs in exacting and devastating detail. Those books stand as impressive examples of journalistic fiction, with much of the material drawn directly from real life. It was with an increasing unease, then, that I raced through his latest hefty opus, The Force, a story set in contemporary New York that drips with corruption, seediness and savagery. How much of what goes on here is true? Knowing Winslow, probably most of it.
