This simple motive is the one constant in an otherwise sprawling book, which includes characters like Sean Callan, an Irish hitman with a load of guilt (because he’s Catholic, duh!) Nora, a high-class hooker with a heart of gold (naturally) a mobster nicknamed Peaches (because he likes peaches) an incorruptible priest named Father Parada, who reminds me of the “cool” young Jesuits I knew in college (he smokes and he curses!) and Ramos, the last good cop in Mexico, who has a preternatural ability to find the bad guys (he chews an unlit cigar, so you know he’s badass).Īll these are stock types.

Keller is obsessed with bringing down Adan’s organization, El Federación. The backbone of the narrative is the struggle between Art Keller, the straight-edged DEA agent I mentioned above, and Adan Barrera, the Michael Corleone of the Mexican Cartels. Trying to describe the plot is an unnecessary exercise that I won’t attempt except at the most macro level. It begins in 1975, with a close-in look at the infamous Operation Condor, and ends in 2004, when the War on Drugs has taken on a new, post-9/11 look. It tells a fictional story that is framed by real life events. The Power of a the Dog is a sweeping, 542-page epic of the drug trade. This is a novel where you can see all the moving parts, but it’s constructed so well, that it never matters. The dramatis personae is almost a list of archetypes: the hard-charging, straight-edged DEA agent the hard-charging agent's charmless boss and the urbane drug lord who gradually gets his hands dirtier and dirtier.

As I read it, pop culture artifacts as different as Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic, and the techno-thrillers of Tom Clancy popped into my head. “But you, O Lord, do not be far off! O you, my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog.”Įverything about Don Winslow’s The Power of the Dog feels familiar.

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