Savages, by Don Winslow, William Heinemann, $29.95
It was Sir Michael Parkinson — well-known TV interviewer, lesser-known crime buff — who first put me onto Don Winslow, describing his 2005 novel The Power of the Dog as the best crime thriller ever written. He’s probably right.
Four books on, Winslow returns to Dog territory, where corruption-riddled American anti-drug enforcers wage war on ultra-violent Mexican drug cartels, leaving a trail of headless bodies in their wake. Only now the Baja cartel is crossing the border into southern California.
Home to a small, good-vibes drug business run by two amiable beach bums. Chon the ex-Navy seal, Ben the surfer son of two psychiatrists. They’re like yin and yang and the book opens with the cartel’s message to them: co-operate, or die.
Turns out neither Chon nor Ben are the co-operative kind. Savages is dark, violent, and funny, like a hopped-up mix of Elmore Leonard and Quentin Tarantino. It’s also sharp about post-GFC America. “You gotta love ‘home invasions’. We thought it would be Mexicans, turns out it was mortgage companies”.
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