A Book by Don Winslow
Don Winslow is a BEAST
The Cartel
A Book Review by Matt Orlando
Click here to skip intro and get straight to the review.
A brief Introduction…
I like learning about myself. I like my ideas being challenged. Or something to come along and slap me across the face and wake me up.
I remember when I had heard about that lady suing McDonald’s after spilling coffee in her lap. The article had said something about her wanting a million dollars because, evidently, she needed recompense for McDonald’s not informing her that the coffee was hot. I was pissed. Angry. Another weak-minded puke being a litigious money grabber because she thought she could swindle a big corporation out of their hard-earned dollars because she wasn’t informed by McDonald’s that her coffee was hot when she ordered it. Are you kidding me? What an idiot! Coffee and hot are synonymous, unless you’re some hipster cold press enjoy my coffee in the hot sun dork. She’s what’s called, A Taker, I thought. I’ve written about them in my books.
Then I saw the documentary on it. Turns out, this was a sweet old lady who was only seeking to get her medical bills paid for and was getting zero help from the big corporation, who had come back at her with what I had thought firsthand… I don’t quote them, but this is the gist: Coffee is hot. Any idiot knows that. We’re not paying your bills.
Caution: HOT coffee
Still, I hadn’t been convinced. She should have known better or been a better coffee holder. Then I saw the pics. Holy shit. The coffee was so friggin' hot it burned her down to muscle layers of her flesh… and right in the sensitive lap area if you know what I mean. That coffee was hot enough to start a fire.
Suddenly, I felt stupid. Grabbed again by another headline meant to cause a reaction. Get me to read the article. Enrage me so that I’d read more articles and the newspaper could get more ad revenue.
It was a wake-up Matty slap in the face. I didn't know the facts. And I let a certain narrative control my emotions.
Bad, Matty. Bad.
It’s an odd way to start a book review, but here’s why… (we all need a slap in the face sometimes)
Here's the review...
The Book Review
I had never seen the problem with drugs coming from Mexico as an American problem.
The cartels were behaving as savages...elsewhere. Killing each other over territory so that they could get more money. And the leaders were already showing up on “Richest Men in the World” lists. For selling illegal drugs! I found this ridiculous and mostly annoying. If the Mexicans can’t control their little cartel people, then so be it. It’s not my problem. I mean how hard can it be?
There would be stories of mutilations, burning people alive in fifty-five-gallon drums, decapitations. Better them than me, I’d think. Friggin' Mexico, get your shit together. Why can’t you be more like us? More amazing, like we are? We don’t decapitate our people. We’re civilized.
And after reading about these things in newspapers and online you can get desensitized to the fact that these are people. And not just cartel members who were playing in a deadly game, but probably deserved what they got. I mean, selling drugs? Who does that? Assholes who deserve to die do that. But what about the innocent people? Well yeah, they should do something about that problem shouldn’t they? Shouldn’t they just stand up to the cartels and shoo them out of the country. I know I would. I’m smart and tough like that. Ha! Cartel running my life? My country? Forget it.
But as I read the book, a new narrative was taking place. One that hadn't struck me so hard in the first book, where I was just getting to know the characters, and seeing the rise of the cartels as they vied for position and power.
This book had made it clear. This was OUR problem.
If you don’t want to get slapped in the face with graphic images of how this situation, just on the other side of that fence, went down—then don’t read this book. It’s heavy. It’s gut wrenching. And while a fictional story, it is also based on factual numbers and situations. These things did take place and continue to do so.
Can you imagine helping one cartel take over another cartel because that cartel will kill people, but not as many? Or will help turn the eyes of the government in the direction you want them to? Or will agree to certain terms and certain arrangements because it’s not as bad as previous ones? The concessions we make in order for Americans to get high is pretty up there on the deal with the Devil scale.
It’s remarkable to me that I had thought of THOSE PEOPLE… DOWN THERE, and not of as people. And not of as ME if I was born there.
I’d spent a lot of time in Mexico. My parents owned a house on the beach an hour below Rosarito. I surfed there almost every weekend. I loved the Mexican people. The vast majority were hard working and welcoming. They were just like us, trying to make a living and support their family. To have a good life. Well I had forgotten about them. Things had been changing down there over the years and we sold the house and didn’t go back. I abandoned my fond images of the Mexican people and replaced them with images of helpless, do-nothing-about-what-was-wrong-their-country peasants.
Well, Don Winslow came along and gave me a well-needed slap in the face.
I just think the guy is a thorough and brilliant storyteller. He tackled some seriously rough terrain with this, and I wondered as I read it, how he had the strength to endure the research for the book. You know he plunged himself into a sewer and didn’t even hold his breath. Akira Kurosawa said something that has stuck with me over the years:
“The role of the artist is to not look away.”
Don could have looked away as I had. He could have said, hey, this is too ugly. I don’t want to drag this weight around with me. The problem is never going to go away. There’s no point in writing this.
He didn’t. He stayed the course and did a masterful job of bringing the reality of the problem to the page, without cramming it down your throat.
This book takes you on a journey where the other book left off. To where the Devil came to play in the hearts of men who had lost their souls and every ounce of humanity. To the real problem. The one we never see because it’s right in our own backyard.
Read this book if you have the stomach. Maybe you’ll get slapped in the face like I did. I know I needed it.
Thanks, Don.
Pick up the first two books in The Power of Dog series from Amazon
The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow
The Cartel by Don Winslow
Read my review on the first installment, The Power of the Dog.
Read my review on the third and last installment, The Border.
Read MORE REVIEWS of The Cartel on Goodreads!