The Power of the Dog
Don Winslow's first Cartel novel opens in 1975, when DEA agent Art Keller stumbles across a poppy field in the Sinaloa hills and helps light the match that becomes Operation Condor. Across the next thirty years it tracks the long, intimate war he fights against Adan Barrera, the polite young pharmacist's nephew Keller helps groom into the godfather of a Mexican drug empire. Their orbit pulls in a New York street kid named Callan turned mob enforcer, an Irish-Mexican prostitute named Nora Hayden, a Jesuit priest in Chiapas, FBI agents, Colombian cartel chiefs, Vatican bankers, and CIA officers running a parallel war in Central America. Drawing on five years of reporting and a sweep that runs from Tijuana to Tehran, Winslow's 2005 novel reframed the modern crime epic, beginning the trilogy that includes The Cartel and The Border. It is one of the great American books on the human cost of the drug war.
Themes & atmosphere
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What you might want to know about The Power of the Dog
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Across thirty years from 1975 on, Don Winslow tracks DEA agent Art Keller's private war against Sinaloa boss Adan Barrera, alongside a New York call girl named Nora Hayden, an Irish hitman from Hell's Kitchen, and a Catholic priest who believes Mexico can be saved through liberation theology.
Yes. Don Winslow's drug-cartel trilogy has three books: The Power of the Dog (2005), The Cartel (2015), and The Border (2019). The trilogy is complete and is widely cited as one of the great American crime sagas.
No. The 2021 film The Power of the Dog directed by Jane Campion is unrelated to Don Winslow's novel. Campion's film is based on Thomas Savage's 1967 novel of the same title.
The Power of the Dog was written by Don Winslow, published in 2005 by Penguin Random House.
The Power of the Dog is 539 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Power of the Dog takes most readers 8 to 12 hours to finish.
The Power of the Dog is a standalone novel by Don Winslow, not part of a series.
The Power of the Dog is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.