Savages: A Novel [Audio] http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Savages-Don-Winslow-Michael-Kramer-Narrator/9781400147663

By Don Winslow, Michael Kramer (Narrator)

About the Author

Don Winslow, a former private investigator and consultant, is the author of over a dozen novels, including The Dawn Patrol, The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Power of the Dog, California Fire and Life, and The Death and Life of Bobby Z. He lives in Southern California. Audiobook veteran and AudioFile Earphones Award winner Michael Kramer has recorded more than two hundred audiobooks for trade publishers and many more for the Library of Congress Talking Books program. His audiobooks include North and South by John Jakes, and a number of other Jakes titles; capers and mysteries by Donald E. Westlake (a.k.a. Richard Stark), including Money for Nothing; and Robert Jordan's fantasy-adventure fiction. In addition, Michael received Audie Award nominations for The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson and Dead Aim by Thomas Perry, and a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award for Savages by Don Winslow.

Reviews

Spare, clipped expository prose and hip, spot-on dialogue propel this visceral crime novel from Winslow (The Dawn Patrol). The future is looking good for Laguna Beach, Calif., marijuana growers Ben and Chon, until they receive an ominous e-mail from the Baja Cartel. Attached is a photograph showing the decapitated bodies of other independent drug dealers. The message is clear: sell your product through us or else. Ben and Chon try to resist, but matters escalate after cartel thugs abduct Ophelia, the guys' beautiful young playmate and accomplice, and hold her for a cool $20 million ransom. Meanwhile, Elena "La Reina" Sanchez Lauter, the leader of the Baja Cartel, must deal with rival drug gangs and potential overthrow from within. Ben and Chon propose a trade that Elena can't refuse, setting the stage for the violent and utterly satisfying ending. Winslow's encyclopedic knowledge of the border drug trade lends authenticity. (July) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.

Initially, I picked this up because I thought the title was Sausages. Ah, well, my chiaroscuro lasagna will have to wait. Violent, poetic, and compelling, this seems like it should be reviewed in "The Word on Street Lit" column of BookSmack! It's about a lot of characters, but the main two guys are Chon and Ben, who grow and sell hydroponic weed in Laguna, CA. Their success becomes their undoing as their little startup bumps up against the big bad Baja Cartel, an absolutely ruthless drug syndicate run by an ice queen named Elena. It's all drugs, guns, murder, death. It's episodic, ugly, unholy, and no one seems to have a soul. All the characters are unlikable, repugnantly honest, and use the same, detached "voice." "Chon goes to the range all the time not because he's preparing for the revolution of the Reconquista, not because he has phallic wet dreams about protecting home and hearth from burglars or home invasion. You gotta love 'home invasions'-we thought it would be Mexicans, turns out it was mortgage companies. Chon likes shooting guns." Thing is, I want to know what happens next. I want to know what happens overall. And I hope like hell that there's some redemption in here somewhere.-Douglas Lord, "Books for Dudes," BookSmack! 7/1/10 Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.