Savages

Don Winslow has a varied body of work behind him, a unique voice that manages to communicate complex ideas and exposition in a smooth, clear voice one moment then deliver hard and emotional setpieces the next. He can be meditative and thoughtful about the criminals and damaged protagonists that populate the worlds he create.Savages is a distillation of all that and all the better for it.With younger protagonists and terse pacing, Winslow makes Savages into a smooth and intense read, laced with a laconic humour and a slightly ironic, campy pace that makes the inevitable scenes of violence all the more visceral. It also follows the basic premise of all great writing - no one is an idiot, or to be precise, no one is an idiot for the purposes of narrative.The nihilism is followed through to the logical conclusion that surprised me with it's tenderness and poetry. I have long believed that crime fiction contains some of the most insightful and beautiful writing beneath it's gruff exterior and Don Winslow is clearly an exponent of that.

Life-long buddies, war veteran Chon and hippy environmentalist Ben produce the best marijuana in California in a series of grow houses and have a readymade market for their product. Along with their intimate female friend Ophelia, known as `O' for short, they live exactly the life they wish to lead. All goes well until the Mexican Baja Cartel wants to have control over their business. When the boys try to walk away, O is kidnapped and will be killed, unless they play to the rules of the Baja Cartel. Both Chon and Ben will do anything to get O released. There then follows an action packed fast moving on the edge of your seat story that is hard to put down. What more can I say, if you like gritty thrillers, written by gifted crime writers, this book is well worth a read.

Innovative prose. Single paragraph chapters. Chapters written like a film script. It Kinda worked at times, but on balance I'm glad Don did not write his other masterpieces (The Force etc) like this. Slight misstep. This is a long way short of a masterpiece. Three stars nonetheless.

A well spun tale in a very original gripping style. Well developed characters tread dangerous paths that rarely lead where the reader expects.

Don Winslow unique style makes this all action tale a 5 star success. A high body count, sexually intense and the David v Goliath. story of two men and one highly sexed woman versus the Mexican cartels keeps you glued to the page. A great read .

Badly written, pointless drivel. After some great books written by Winslow this is one to be missed. Didn't finish.

I am a Don Winslow fan. Some of his books are some of the best crime fiction going. Savages does not rank with the best but that is unfair, not the best for Don Winslow still knocks the spots of most otehr crime writers. This is a fast paced book, with twists and turns. Funny and at times fantastical. Written at times like a film script with a lot of puns and word games. I read it in two days because I was enjoying it so much. And the ending is certainly not what I expected.

At first I saw the movie from Oliver Stone and I loved it. But I knew that in order to deeper understand the characters I need to read this book. We get to know what made Chon (John) the Chon he is now-the wolf and what made Ben a Ben-dog you may say. This book is a perfect example of suppressed human nature and what happens when you push a man too far - the savage side awakens - basically we are chimpanzees with machine guns as Chon says although with a great potential to finally become "humans". The book is quite like modern Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - very intense, very entertaining to read (great quotes by the characters), It's honest, funny at the times, very well written and I recommend this book to everyone that can appreciate a good thriller or wants to learn more about human nature.What are you willing to sacrifice, how far will you go for the people that you love ?Buy this book & find out !