The Border: A Novel (Power of the Dog)
“the action never wanes, the story never dulls. An ageless tale of vengeance, violence, corruption and justice--or injustice—The Border is an epic conclusion to an epic series . . .”
Don Winslow’s highly anticipated conclusion to his epic Cartel trilogy has finally arrived. What started with The Power of The Dog, followed by The Cartel, has now been completed in its sojourn with The Border.
What do you do when there are no borders? When the lines you thought existed simply vanish? How do you plant your feet to make a stand when you no longer know what side you’re on? The war has finally come home for DEA operative and Vietnam veteran Art Keller.
For over 40 years, Keller has been on the front lines of America’s longest conflict: The War on Drugs. His obsession to defeat the world’s most powerful, wealthy, and lethal kingpin―the godfather of the Sinaloa Cartel, Adán Barrera―has left him bloody and scarred, cost him the people he loves, even taken a piece of his soul.
Barrera’s final legacy is the heroin epidemic scourging America. Throwing himself into the gap to stem the deadly flow, Keller finds himself surrounded by enemies―men who want to kill him, politicians who want to destroy him, and worse, the unimaginable―an incoming administration that’s in bed with the very drug traffickers that Keller is trying to bring down.
However, Keller is at war with not only the cartels, but with his own government. And the long fight has taught him more than he ever imagined. Now he learns the final lesson―there are no borders. He has been elevated to the highest ranks of the DEA, only to find that in destroying one monster he has created 30 more that are wreaking even more chaos and suffering in his beloved Mexico:
“Orduna waits for him at the little airstrip hacked out of the forest. The commander of the FES sits inside the bay of a Blackhawk helicopter. Keller and Admiral Orduna has formed an ‘anything you need, anytime,’ relationship during their war against the Zetas. Keller provided him with top-level American intelligence, and often accompanied his elite special-forces marines on operations inside Mexico.
“This one had been different--the chance to decapitate the Zeta leadership in a single stroke came in Guatemala, where the Mexican couldn’t go. But Orduna provided Keller’s team with a staging base and logistical support, flew the team into Campeche, and now waits to see if his friend Art Keller is still alive.”
He is. This time. Barely. But Keller’s luck and skills may soon be deserting him.
In a story that moves from deserts south of the border to Wall Street, from the slums of Guatemala to the marbled corridors of Washington, D.C., Winslow follows a new generation of narcos, the cops who fight them, the street traffickers, the addicts, the politicians, money launderers, real-estate moguls, and mere children fleeing the violence for the chance of a life in a new country.
This is a big beefy book, with over 700 pages in length. Yet the action never wanes, the story never dulls. An ageless tale of vengeance, violence, corruption and justice--or injustice—The Border is an epic conclusion to an epic series, biblical in proportion with apocalyptic scenes and characters straight from Dante’s Inferno. We can just sit back and marvel at such a creation, almost 20 years in the making.