Pun Salad

I've been reading Don Winslow's books for a long time. I thought his previous book, The Border, was wrecked by injecting of his (tedious unhinged lefty) political views into the plot. So I started in on this most recent work with trepidation: more of the same?

Good news: there's only a little bit of that here, and it's kept within tolerable limits.

It's a collection of six novellas, each running approximately 50-60 pages. With lots of short paragraphs and incomplete sentences, a staple of Winslow's prose. Reading Winslow is as easy as eating ice cream. (Not too quickly, you'll get a headache. Not too much, you'll get a myocardial infarction.)

We have:

Broken — A very dark, very gritty tale of two cop brothers. (And mom is a cop dispatcher.) One brother is rule-breaking, ultraviolent, super-effective at taking down the operation of a local drug kingpin. Unfortunately, the kingpin retaliates against the other brother, very nastily. It's not hard to see what's coming: a (literally) explosive, bullet-filled climax.

Crime 101 — The infamous "101 Bandit" operates up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, pulling meticulously-planned heists of high-value merchandise. He is looking to pull off (oh oh) one last big job, then retire. Things don't go as planned, thanks to a cop obsessed with his capture.

The San Diego Zoo — This one is hilarious. Opening sentence: "No one knows how the chimp got the revolver." But a young cop is tasked with getting it away from him. And gets tangled up in the aftermath, as he investigates the pistol's provenance. And finds love.

Sunset — A legendary bail bondsman is coming to the bittersweet end of a lucrative career. But not before he needs to have a bail-skipper tracked down.

Paradise — California pot growers go to Hawaii on vacation, see an opportunity to open up a little new agricultural territory on Kauai. Unfortunately, that is deeply resented by the existing organization, and things quickly turn violent.

The Last Ride — This one gets a little political, as a Border Patrol agent working down in Texas gets concerned about the family separation/kids in cages thing. He's especally concerned about Luz, separated from her mom, kept apart by bureaucratic snafus. He becomes obsessed with their reunification, at a steep price.

What's surprising is Winslow's occasional resurrection of characters from his previous work. Including one that I'm pretty sure hasn't been around since 1996. (I've avoided using names above.) It's not necessary that you read Winslow's complete oeuvre before reading this, but you will miss out on those little thrills of recognition.