This is Don Winslow's followup to City on Fire, which was a book I absolutely loved. Winslow has created a terrific protagonist in Danny Ryan who you really care about. The book is paced very well. It cuts between different characters and keeps the reader engaged throughout. There's a lot of humor and interesting insights into mob characters.

Now I realize any book about the mob is gonna have some misogyny baked into it. I had a problem, however, with the fact that nearly every female character is there strictly to have sex with the men. Again, I get it--it's a male dominated world with characters who treat women dismissively. But it went beyond that. I think the author ended up treating the women dismissively. When a mobster gets a flat tire and a woman pulls over to help him, you know the only question is "how many pages until they sleeping together?" (Spoiler alert: It was a page or two.) It's just predictable writing, which is the weak spot in an otherwise fine novel.

Danny Ryan's adventure continues. Certainly the most likeable character from City on Fire, following Danny on the run with his young son and elderly father is a worthwhile read. His struggle to move on from a life that doesn't want to let him go is engaging. The pacing is brisk and the writing sharp. Definitely recommend.

City of Dreams was not as good as its predecessor City on Fire. The story is a bit disjointed and the characters and stories not as interesting as the first book in the series. I hope that the final book in the trilogy brings back more of an interesting storyline to conclude Danny Ryan's story.

Propulsive, explosive and emotive, City of Dreams is a gritty yet beautiful tale of second chances, making deals and controlling your destiny. Don Winslow strikes gold once again with an absorbing novel that explores the intoxicating allure of power, fame, influence, control and money as well as the gravitational pull of loyalty, family and love.

Following the events of City on Fire, Danny Ryan and his Irish crew are making a run west to evade retribution from the rival Italian mob, the feds and anyone else who wishes them harm after a bloody gang war on the streets of Providence. Recently widowed and with a young son to care for, Danny has plans to go legit and start a new life in California. But the old life is hard to shake, either because he needs to pull a job to make peace with the feds or because it’s in his blood and he only feels alive when he’s got a piece of the action. And there’s plenty of action in Los Angeles where he and his crew get involved in a Hollywood production, hook up with beautiful women and get sideways with the west coast mob. But with death following Danny wherever he goes, will he and his crew be able to survive long enough to reap the benefits of their second act?

Being the second installment in a trilogy, City of Dreams has the critical job of being a bridge from the first book to the last and it doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it thrives on its own. It builds upon the backstories and unadulterated violence provided in City on Fire and moves Danny Ryan’s journey forward in both expected and unexpected ways. Expected in the way that his thought process and actions are still grounded in what he learned back in Providence, leading to making both shady and legitimate deals that benefit him and his devoted crew. Proving the adage that you can take the man out of the mob, but you can’t take the mob out of the man. And unexpected in the way he rebounds from the loss of his wife and all the bloodshed he experienced to be a good father, to find a way to forgive his estranged mother, to find someone to love and fulfill his potential.

City of Dreams is tremendous! Filled in equal measure with moving moments and “oh-shit” events, it’s emotional and stirring while also being vicious and calculating. It’s a brilliant follow up to City on Fire that perfectly sets up the final installment in the trilogy, promising to be entertaining as hell…either as a triumphant success or an ignominious end to the Danny Ryan saga. Regardless, it’ll be a final gift to readers from the genius pen of Don Winslow. And I can’t wait to find out how this epic story ends.

It sometimes takes multi-volume stories a while before they really show themselves as the epics they are. With CITY OF DREAMS, Don Winslow pays off on the groundwork laid in the novel's predecessor, CITY ON FIRE, and crafts a genre-bending story of distinctly American hubris that could only come in the guise of a genre novel.

The first half or so of the book may be some of the most relentlessly fast-paced storytelling in Winslow's bibliography, which is saying a LOT (this is the guy who wrote SAVAGES, after all). As it's in many ways an extended chase scene, this is fitting. We get the aftermath of CITY ON FIRE's mob war and dope heist, Danny Ryan's mad race across the country with his surviving crew, and another even more daring robbery. Amid all that Winslow finds time for surreal comedy (half-brain wiseguys trying to hack it living in Arizona and Southern California). Poignant yet doomed relationships (Peter Moretti, the major casus belli of CITY ON FIRE, oft-depicted as a predatory greedhead, turning sensitive and thoughtful in the arms of his rival's daughter Cassie). And more than a few withering depictions of the corrupt nexus connecting politics, law enforcement, the drug trade and America's black-ops foreign skullduggery, which, of course, has been the source of the sociopolitical fury that drives Winslow to write what he writes since THE DEATH AND LIFE OF BOBBY Z.

The second half slows down, albeit without becoming dull. It gives us some more of the stuff we expected based on the first half, but often does so in surprising ways, and also some major curveballs. Danny's romance with troubled actress Diane Carson is the sort of thing a lesser novelist would fumble worse than Mark Sanchez, but it works here, as does Danny's pivot into the movie business. The subplot of Peter Moretti Jr. comes.seemingly out of nowhere in the book's final chapters, and is still incredibly disturbing and moving. (Winslow has not been remotely subtle about the parallels to Virgil, Homer and Sophocles within this series, either in the text or in interviews, but tell me you saw Peter Jr's actions coming and I will simply call you a liar.) Also, before Danny Ryan, Winslow wrote few characters you'd expect to have Joycean stream-of-consciousness whirlwind trips through their psyche (except maybe Pablo Mora from THE CARTEL, and Mora didn't have time for that stuff)...but it makes perfect sense for Danny. (Winslow is more experimental than most crime novelists get credit for being, but he's never done anything like Danny's hallucination sequence before.)

As I hoped when I reviewed CITY ON FIRE, CITY OF DREAMS spends more time with its women than its predecessor, to excellent results. Danny's mother Madeleine is even more of the invisible-hand power broker than she was in the first novel but also is more interesting in that role this time around. (In FIRE, she's a bit too similar to the Cartel Trilogy's Nora Callan.) Cassie, like her namesake, is right about everything and punished for it. Diane's central trauma is as lurid as anything Ross Macdonald or Jim Thompson ever cooked up in its literal facts, but the emotional truth buoying it and her expression of it is heartbreaking. Even bit players like Diane's assistant Ana and the stage mom who dates Danny's pet assassin Kevin Coombs reveal themselves not as mere stock characters but inevitable products of corrupt systems, in this case Hollywood rather than organized crime or right-wing politics.

Don Winslow is one of my favorites, so I'm far from impartial on him. I know I'll reread this book as I did CITY ON FIRE. But I truly didn't want CITY OF DREAMS to end, because spending time in its world was a joy despite its violence and emotional turbulence. I'm glad there will be one last ride with Danny Ryan before too long.

At some point in the past few years, Don Winslow has become a favorite author of mine. His Power of the Dog trilogy blew me away (almost 3,000 pages for the trilogy and I still read every word). When I learned Winslow would be starting a new trilogy based on the mob in 1980s Rhode Island, I was eager to get my hands on it.

City of Fire quickly surprised POTD trilogy to become my new favorite Winslow and upon meeting these characters, I was excited to hear there would be two more books following them. Upon approval for City of Dreams, I dropped everything to pick back up with Danny Ryan & co. There’s not even a cover out for this one yet and I’m already wondering how I can get my hands on book 3.

Thank you to William Morrow for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.