City of Dreams: Don Winslow

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Beautifully written with intriguing characters, City of Dreams moves through Ryan's life -- the highest of highs and the lowest of lows -- swiftly and deftly. More than anything else, he’d like to protect his young son, Ian, and raise him in a crime-free environment. These just feel rushed, less sensational and way too many plot lines and characters to hold the story together. The other aspect of Winslow’s work that stands out is how his books function as a detailed alternative crime history of America from the 1990s onwards.

And when Hollywood starts shooting a film based on his former life, Danny demands a piece of the action and begins to rebuild his criminal empire. Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. There’s a great deal of character development going on, something that Don Winslow is highly adept at crafting. The progression of Ryan’s life involves numerous twists and turns, the result of which makes for a sweeping tale of family, revenge, and survival as he confronts the reality of what he hopes his life will turn out to be.In one of the novel’s most harrowing scenes, Danny and his crew (including two mob soldiers nicknamed the “Altar Boys,” because they coyly boast that they serve their victims “Last Communion”) agree to an “everything-will-be-forgiven” deal with the Drug Enforcement Administration. Savages was bad but original, The Force was cheesy but kind of fun, City on Fire was derivative but energetic and twisty. Felt maybe a bit rushed at times, which is a bit strange as the author’s work always felt very carefully and well-paced previously. Sin duda, si te gusto el primero este lo disfrutarás bastante, ya que continúa donde lo dejo el anterior y lo hace de una forma bastante natural, el pero en mi caso fue el cambio de escenario, pero ya se sabe que para gustos.

Next stop Hollywood, to pull into line two of his former gang members who are extorting the makers of a new feature film about the very New England crime war from which he has escaped.City of Dreams picks up exactly where City on Fire left off, and the result is even sharper, funnier, and more brilliant than its predecessor … but Winslow makes this Aeneid-inspired tale soar―sometimes from epic to venal, or from poignant to comical―and it makes the wait for the third book unbearable. Danny drives away with his newborn son and ends up in Los Angeles, associated with a movie about his life, and dating an actress. They begin to put the squeeze on Hollywood, the city of dreams, after learning that the Rhode Island events and their lives are being turned into a movie, Providence, and it features Danny. If you read the first book you know that Danny is broke, in the middle of a hailstorm of grief, and in a lot of trouble at the end of the last book.

Though inflected with occasional reflections on the absurdity of the human condition, “City of Dreams” is no picaresque; instead, as his many fans have come to expect from Winslow, this latest novel in a projected trilogy is unrelentingly tough, tense and violent. Michaelides seems also to be dipping into the world of Edgar Allan Poe, offering an unreliable narrator who feels more like a literary exercise.

My expectations were high, therefore, but what I got was the transition book to Danny Ryan setting up in Las Vegas (the next in the trilogy, which I will read despite my disappointment with the City of Dreams.