Pun Salad

This is billed as a "prequel to Savages", Don Winslow's previous novel about mellow California pot dealers, Ben and Chon, who run afoul of a Mexican drug cartel. As I remember it would have been tough to make a sequel to Savages. And, although I'm a Winslow fan, I didn't care for Savages very much when I read it back in 2012. But… let's give this a try.

And I liked this one a lot. I'm not sure why, it has the same choppy style ("short sentences in short paragraphs, unusual use of whitespace, occasional passages are rendered in screenplay format"). It is an origin tale, mostly set in 2005 as Ben and Chon get into business and immediately run afoul of the Association, who would like to, um, acquire their enterprise.

There are also flashbacks to decades previous. It doesn't become clear why until near the end, but there's some real Ross Macdonald-style reasons for it. There are a lot of characters, and it will behoove the reader to keep them straight. Slight spoiler: people who have read Winslow's oeuvre will be pleased to note a couple cameo appearances from other books.

Overall, it's a sobering tale of how the War on Drugs corrupts and kills.

But conservatives and libertarians will want to read Chapter 35. It's hilarious.