Great Reads for Great Readers

 

City in Ruins, by Don Winslow.

 

       

     The great Don Winslow, crime-writer extraordinaire, has announced that the above title, the last book in his contemporary trilogy based on Homer’s epic Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid, will be his last.  In the immortal words of John Macinroe – (and millions of fans) HE CAN’T BE SERIOUS!!

            But he is, and the reading public is the poorer for it, because ‘City In Ruins’ has all the excitement, suspense and heartbreak of the preceding novels, set in Rhode Island, and involving a gang war between the Italian Mafia (Greece) and uppity Irish crims (Troy) getting too big for their boots.

            Danny Ryan (Aeneas) is the main protagonist, and he is forced to leave his dying wife behind as he flees with his loyal gang to California, intent on straightening himself out and leaving all the criminality behind for he has a baby son to look after, and nothing can be more important than that:  he wants his son to grow up to be proud of him, and to that end transforms himself into a legitimate businessman.  Now, after various Hollywood misadventures he has transformed himself into a respected Casino owner, one of the richest movers and shakers in Las Vegas.

            But Danny has never been a favourite of the Gods;  every now and then they remind him that they can change his life in an instant, especially  when he makes a rash and impulsive decision to buy an old hotel at a very strategic site – nothing wrong with that, except that the hotel in question had already been sold to someone else, who takes Danny’s absurdly huge impossible-to-refuse offer very personally:  eventually, the loser brings in a Mafia hitman so twisted that said hitman actually disgusts the others of his ilk:  Danny, in his attempts to be an honourable and legitimate businessman of whom his son can be proud, has hit a major snag:  it’s Killing and Maiming time again, and this time, his friends and loved ones are about to be sacrificed:  whether he wants to or not, he has to become a ruthless and deadly killer again to protect everyone he loves.

            No-one can ratchet up suspense more efficiently than Don Winslow as any late-night reader with a speeding heart will attest, and his contemporary retelling of the great epics of Homer and Virgil is masterly.  I still hope his announcement that this is his last novel is a whim of the Gods – and if it’s his whim, please can he be less whimsical?  SIX STARS.