From the internationally bestselling author of the acclaimed novel The Power of the Dog comes The Cartel, a gripping, ripped-from-the-headlines story of power, corruption, revenge, and justice spanning the past decade of the Mexican-American drug wars.
It’s 2004. DEA agent Art Keller has been fighting the war on drugs for thirty years in a blood feud against Adán Barrera, the head of El Federación, the world’s most powerful cartel, and the man who brutally murdered Keller’s partner. Finally putting Barrera away cost Keller dearly—the woman he loves, the beliefs he cherishes, the life he wants to lead.
Then Barrera gets out, determined to rebuild the empire that Keller shattered. Unwilling to live in a world with Barrera in it, Keller goes on a ten-year odyssey to take him down. His obsession with justice—or is it revenge?—becomes a ruthless struggle that stretches from the cities, mountains, and deserts of Mexico to Washington’s corridors of power to the streets of Berlin and Barcelona.
Keller fights his personal battle against the devastated backdrop of Mexico’s drug war, a conflict of unprecedented scale and viciousness, as cartels vie for power and he comes to the final reckoning with Barrera—and himself—that he always knew must happen.
The Cartel is a true-to-life story of honor and sacrifice, as one man tries to face down the devil without losing his soul. It is the story of the war on drugs and the men—and women—who wage it.
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"2nd book in trilogy , absolutely fantastic series. don is king"
— agough1 (5 out of 5 stars)
“I’m totally swept up. You can’t ask for more emotionally moving entertainment.”
— Stephen King, #1 New York Times bestselling author“A first-rate edge-of-your-seat thriller.”
— Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author“A gut-punch of a novel. Big, ambitious, violent, and wildly entertaining…an absolute must-read.”
— Harlan Coben, #1 New York Times bestselling author“Sensationally good.”
— Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author“This is the War and Peace of dope-war books. Tense, brutal, wildly atmospheric, stunningly plotted, deeply etched.”
— James Ellroy, New York Times bestselling author“Overpowering.”
— Time“High octane…The righteous indignation that fuels his tale of cops, cartels, and the near-apocalyptic havoc they can create is, to use a sadly appropriate word, addictive.”
— Entertainment Weekly“With corruption, violence, and a love story to boot, [The Cartel] is sure to have you grasping at the edge of your seat.”
— Vanity Fair“A magnum opus…[Winslow] is to the Mexican drug wars what James Ellroy is to LA noir.”
— New York Times“One of the best thriller writers on the planet…Winslow has written an epic, gritty south-of-the-border Godfather for our time.”
— Esquire“A sort of Game of Thrones of the Mexican drug wars, a multipart, intricately plotted, blood-soaked epic that tells the story of how America’s unquenchable appetite for illegal drugs has brought chaos to our southern neighbors and darkened our own political and criminal culture.”
— Rolling Stone“Here is fiction based on the best journalistic sources, with lively dialogue, timely revelations, and overall the pace and feel of an exploded documentary…A brilliant and informative work of fiction about a nightmare world that flourishes in the bright light of day.”
— NPR“A grand and gripping epic novel.”
— Huffington Post“A Wagernian epic of murder and vengeance..The Cartel is as much a work of meticulous journalism as artful fiction…[with] skillfully drawn characters.”
— Barnes&Noble.com“An adrenaline rush, addictive as crack, and epic…Winslow deals in corruption, subversion, and revenge with an intensity that makes him irresistible.”
— Los Angeles Magazine“This exhaustively researched novel elucidates not just the situation in Mexico but the consequences of our own disastrous forty-year ‘war on drugs.’”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Horrifying in its accuracy, mesmerizing in its sweep and immediacy, brilliantly pace and placed…It’s all made intensely real by Ray Porter’s powerful performance.”
— BookPage (Top Pick in Audiobooks)“A jarring glimpse into a reality about which many Americans remain blissfully unaware.”
— Library Journal (starred review)“There is some of The Godfather here, but Winslow’s characterizations, though certainly multidimensional, have more of an edge to them than do Puzo’s…Clearly one of the most ambitious and most accomplished crime novels to appear in the last fifteen years.”
— Booklist (starred review)“At heart, this is the familiar tale of symbiosis between pursuer and pursued, reconfigured for the war on drugs and given a mean noir edge.”
— Kirkus Reviews“Ray Porter is an experienced narrator who does an expert job with Winslow’s complex plot and dozens of characters…Porter does many voices—depicting characters’ accents, genders, and ages very well. His pace is good, and his tone is intense without being overly dramatic.”
— AudioFile“[The Cartel] gives, perhaps, the clearest insight I’ve ever seen into the corruption that has nearly ruined the country of Mexico. Very tough book, but if you want to know what’s going on south of the border, it is a must read.”
— Bill O’Reilly, The O’Reilly Factor (Factor Tip of the Day)“Lengthy, ambitious, and uncompromising.”
— Mystery SceneDon Winslow is the author of twenty-four acclaimed, award-winning international bestsellers, including six New York Times bestsellers (Savages, The Kings of Cool, The Cartel, The Force, The Border, and City on Fire). Savages was made into a feature film by three-time Oscar-winning writer-director Oliver Stone and a screenplay by Shane Salerno, Winslow, and Stone. Winslow’s epic Cartel trilogy has been adapted for TV and will appear as a weekly series on FX in 2023. The Force is soon to be a major motion picture from 20th Century Studios starring Matt Damon with James Mangold directing from a Scott Frank screenplay. Additional Winslow books are currently in development at Netflix, Warner Brothers, Sony, and Working Title and he has recently written a series of acclaimed short stories for Audible narrated by four-time Oscar nominee Ed Harris.
Ray Porter has garnered two Audie nominations as well as several Earphones Awards and enthusiastic reviews for his sparkling narration of audiobooks. A fifteen-year veteran of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has also appeared in numerous films and television shows.