The Power of the Dog

THE POWER OF THE DOG is a gritty, graphic novel of life among drug trade. Featuring DEA Agent Art Montana, the story is not for the faint of heart. Winslow offers a no-holds-barred view of this criminal underbelly, focusing upon Montana's pursuit of the Barrera brothers. The book includes numerous memorable characters, especially prostitute Nora Hayden and hit man Sean Callan, who seems surprisingly uninterested in his career and his life. Narrator Ray Porter capitalizes on these personalities by employing unique voices to embellish the story. Porter captures the story's intensity, deftly using inflection and pauses, and the long novel moves more quickly than one might expect. D.J.S. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

April 4, 2005
The war on drugs is powerfully dramatized in Winslow's ambitious, dense and gritty latest (after 1999's California Fire and Life
). Art Keller is a brilliant DEA agent who sometimes breaks the rules to serve justice. Adan Barrera is an urbane drug dealer whose charm masks his brutality. Nora Hayden is a high-class call girl whose heart is in the right place. And Sean Callan is a taciturn mob hit man, a stone-cold killer who just wants out of the life. Winslow follows these four characters and assorted extras as they cross paths over three decades in the international drug trade, from Keller's first encounter with Barrera in 1970s Mexico, through the drug cartels' corruption of government officials in the U.S. and Mexico governments, to a final showdown on the U.S. border in 1999. Winslow's depth of research and unflagging attention to detail give the story both heft and immediacy, and his staccato, present-tense prose shifts easily among wildly disparate settings and multiple points of view. A complex plot, well-drawn characters and plenty of double-crossing make this a thinking person's narco-thriller. Agent, Jimmy Vines. Author tour.