Don Winslow's The Border: An Unapologetic Condemnation of the War on Drugs

I thankfully discovered Don Winslow several years ago when the second leg of his now complete The Cartel trilogy, was released. I picked up the audiobook and was captured immediately, taken deep into the world of drugs and its traffickers, and the accompanying violence and corruption. Winslow writes in a compelling almost journalistic style, turning the intrigue of the narcotic trade into a page turner extraordinaire.
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Last year, Winslow announced the release of the final chapter in the story of DEA agent Art Keller and I quickly got myself a copy of The Power of the Dog, the pilot episode in this epic story of Keller and his obsession with Adán Barrera, the patron and head of the Sinaloa Cartel. In the final chapter, however, Winslow had his aim clearly on the current U.S. administration, teasing early on that the reckless behaviour and policies of Trump and his cronies would be subject to scrutiny, aptly titling the novel The Border. 

Ambitious in scope, written with gusto, pleasing to those lovers of crime fiction or political thrillers, Winslow delivers a fittingly brilliant conclusion to the trilogy that speaks to so many of the most pressing issues of the political moment.

After Keller had killed Barrera at the conclusion of The Cartel, he is recruited to head up the DEA as the Sinaloa drug empire falls into chaos and powerful players seek to replace Adan as the patron of the cartel. At times this can be messy, as many different families and alliances assert themselves and then quickly are defeated or fade. But Winslow does his best to bring the readers up to speed and allows them to get a grasp of the chaos that Barrera's death has caused.

While the Mexican forces battle for supremacy, the 2016 Presidential election takes centre stage, as a fictionalized Donald Trump, aka John Dennison, enters the race eager to scapegoat Mexican migrants for the ills of American society. At times Dennison feels cartoonish, but only because Winslow takes Trump's rhetoric verbatim when scripting Dennison's speeches, which says more about Trump's own unbelievable villainy than Winslow's writing. Dennison's son-in-law (Jared in disguise) gets roped into the drug world in the midst of the election, procuring a massive loan from cartel affiliated forces to fund a tower project that Dennison has a direct financial interest in. Keller, concerned with the fortunes of American democracy at the hands of Dennison, turns his attention to this laundering scheme and must face the inevitable backlash when Dennison surprisingly wins the election.

I must admit I was concerned with how this plot device would work. Winslow, who is very active with his views on Twitter, spends significant time challenging the Trump administrations ties to Russia and whether financial dealings between the Russian government and Trump compromise the latter's fealty to the United States. Although the Trump administration may raise such concerns, there is nothing inherently foreign about its actions nor about the thirty years of aggressive bipartisan neoliberal governance, Trump being its latest, most extreme, incarnation. Stressing Russian influence is often a substitute for looking deeply into the core rot of the American system that Trump is merely a symptom, otherizing the causes of the mess we are currently in. Thankfully, Winslow avoids this and if anything uses cartel influence of the Dennison regime to emphasize American complicity in the drug crisis. In terms of the narrative, the Dennison-drug money ties actually works quite well, allowing Winslow to delve into the realm of political thriller that does in fact deliver compelling plot points.

More powerful, however, are the vignettes into the lives of Central American migrants, often escaping civil wars or drug gangs that the United States market has encouraged. Winslow tells the story of two Guatemalan children, Nico and Flor, who flee local unrest, only to be repeatedly victimized either by criminal players or state actors, pushing them into lives of exploitation and crime. In many ways these sections are the most forceful rebuke of the Trump obsession with his wall, painting a picture of chaos and suffering that the American state has played a direct hand in causing and the very human face of those Trump eagerly dismisses as 'bad hombres' and criminals. If there are monsters in the midst, Trump and by association the United States has no one to blame but themselves for creating them.

In the end, Winslow concludes with a very explicit and bludgeoning take down of the War on Drugs. Keller, confronted by political circumstances keen on destroying him, must come to terms with his own actions and the consequences they had on innocent parties. He is forced to question whether his four decade hunt of the drug cartels was the right war to be fighting, a question whose answer is unequivocally negative.

Without a doubt, Winslow is one of the premier crime writers of our times. His research is impeccable, his story telling engrossing. He peppers the historical context with the brutal violence that colours it, and he is able to capture his readers eager to find out how this epic saga ends. If you haven't picked up Winslow, do it now, go get yourself a copy of The Power of the Dog, The Cartel and The Border and don't look back, just read and disappear into the story of the new American century.