Finally, a follow-up to 2005's The Power of the Dog, a bone-shaking novel about the drug trade that's being made into a movie. Here, DEA agent Art Keller has retired to a monastery after putting away leading drug lord Adán Barrera. Then Barrera arranges to serve the rest of his term in a Mexican prison.

In this unsparing follow-up to his highly regarded The Power of the Dog, Winslow resumes his fictionalized account of the catastrophic Mexican-American drug war, now in its fourth decade. The novel begins in 2004, with kingpin Adán Barerra in prison and the man who captured him, rogue DEA agent Art Keller, keeping bees in a monastery, with a price on his head. Soon Barrera engineers an escape, forcing Keller back on the hunt and setting off a nightmarish chain reaction of Godfather-esque machinations, retaliations, and unholy alliances that are often hard to follow. Writing in his customary rat-a-tat prose style, Winslow expands the story to encompass dozens of peripheral characters, including a beauty queen-turned-drug empress, a 13-year-old prodigy killing for God, and a heroically dedicated band of journalists tasked with documenting the endless carnage. With most of law enforcement on some cartel's payroll and the rapidly dwindling newspapermen intimidated into silence, the cartels have nearly free rein to settle their gruesome turf wars and continue profiting from the endless U.S. demand for narcotics as once-proud Mexican cities fall into ruin. VERDICT The staggering body count will be a challenge for many readers to get past, but the payoffs for those who persevere are immense. Winslow's two-novel project about this still-raging conflict is entertaining, well researched, and difficult to process, a jarring glimpse into a reality about which many Americans remain blissfully unaware. [See Prepub Alert, 12/15/14.]—Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ

Set in 2004, Winslow's masterly sequel to The Power of the Dog (2005) continues his epic story of the Mexican drug wars. DEA agent Art Keller has withdrawn from the world, tending bees for a New Mexico monastery, when he receives word that his old nemesis, Adán Barrera, leader of the Sinaloan cartel El Federación, has escaped from prison and is intent on reestablishing control of his empire. Keller agrees to return to duty and spearheads several attempts to capture Barrera, who remains elusive and seemingly protected by the Mexican police and government. As a war between Barrera's cartel and several different competing factions ensues, violence overwhelms the city of Ciudad Juárez. Along the way, Keller falls in love with Marisol Cisneros, a beautiful doctor who heads a small but committed group of journalists and artists dedicated to resisting the violence. This exhaustively researched novel elucidates not just the situation in Mexico but the consequences of our own disastrous 40-year "war on drugs." Author tour; 50,000–copy first printing. Agent: Shane Salerno, Story Factory. (June)