For today’s review, let’s talk about something soothing—just kidding, let’s dive into Don Winslow’s ultra fast-paced crime thriller “
The Force.”
***The Non-Spoiler part of this review***
What I love about this book:
There is an energy to Winslow’s writing, a momentum that doesn’t just propel you forward through the plot of this novel, but rather it feels like it flings you bodily. It’s in everything, in the punchiness of the writing, the structure of the story, the settings described, and especially in the manic characters who inhabit Winslow’s version of New York. I found myself still thinking of this book days after having finished it.
I like that this story isn’t a rehashing of the concept of watching the main character struggle with the best intentions but gets corrupted by certain choices and circumstances. No, that shit is all in the past—Detective Malone and his crew are dirty cops from page one. And right there, on that first page, is where the crumbling of their world starts to crescendo—implied by the first sentence! The pacing from there only barely takes little breathers, and sometimes I like an ultra fast-paced narrative. I like this book for that.
With this subgenre of police thriller/suspense, the world’s authenticity and believability are the book’s lifeblood, and Winslow doesn’t disappoint in that regard. In fact, with everything going on with protests and whatnot, I’ve said before that if Winslow had just managed to predict a global pandemic in the next few years when this book came out in 2017, he’d be a god damn prophet. So it feels believable.
What I don’t love about this book:
I don’t like Detective Denny Malone. I know, weird thing to say about a story I said I like that pivots around the character of Denny Malone. He’s vital for this story’s narrative—no argument there—but I still don’t like him. It’s not that I can’t stomach a protagonist who is a bad person. After all, I thoroughly enjoyed “The Godfather,” which I’ve seen this book described as “The Godfather” for corrupt cops. What I don’t like are characters who delude themselves into thinking of themselves as somehow justified, especially people in positions of power within society—like corrupt cops.
Speaking as a liberal snowflake myself—in more than one way given my lily-white complexion—this was an incredibly awkward book to listen to right now. I’ll give you an example, but first, as you might have read before in my earlier reviews, I’m an audiobook person. That’s important to my story. Quick aside, Dion Graham did an amazing job narrating. Anyway, back to the story, whilst grocery shopping, I listened to this book, on high, because grocery stores are noisy places. This means that if you are, say, in the same aisle as me, you might hear my audiobook blasting in my head. Especially when Dion Graham starts scream-singing “F the Police,” not that song’s actual title, by N.W.A. because that’s what the characters are doing in the story—looks were had.
But other than that, it’s just an odd book—a perspective from corrupt cops—to be reading while the public eye intensely focuses on how there is a problem with policing in America. It’s uncomfortable, and I don’t love feeling uncomfortable. I think that’s Winslow’s point though, there
IS a problem, and we
SHOULD feel uncomfortable. He uses his deeply flawed characters to illuminate those problems through their eyes.
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***The Spoiler part of this review***
***Ye be warned to turn back now***
The quick and dirty synopsis:
Like I said above, right off, we’re told that Detective Denny Malone is a corrupt cop, and other authorities than himself have just caught up with him.
