Review
Author: Don Winslow
Reviewed by: Thomas Hudnut
Issue: September 2017
The Force is a riveting novel that reads like a Pulitzer award-winning newspaper series about real-life cops and their anti-gang, anti-drug crusade. It is the story of Sgt. Denny Malone and his team of fellow detectives on the Manhattan North Task Force as they struggle to stop the trafficking of drugs and guns in West Harlem. Underneath that all-too-real surface story, though, is a tale of graft, corruption, extortion, blackmail, and unrelenting violence. It, too, rings sadly true. As Malone and his team recall, their descent began innocently enough: a cup of coffee, a sandwich, some pocket money for a favor, bigger money for bigger favors, serious money for working with lawyers and assistant district attorneys to get charges dropped or plea-bargain for a reduced sentence, and then really heavy money for protecting major drug dealers and Mafiosi, culminating in stealing millions of dollars of cocaine with the intent to re-sell it. All of this is rationalized by the cops: they don't make enough money, they're doing it so their kids can go to college, so they can "pull the pin" after 20 years on Da Force and retire in style. And Winslow makes sure the reader knows that it's not only the cops who behave badly: hypocritical judges and politicians and real estate moguls get a pasting as well, for turning a blind eye, for profiting from the dirty work they let others do, for hanging the cops out to dry when things get too hot. The Force is a gripping page-turner from beginning to end. The reader admires the police for their tenacity, marvels at their courage, is appalled by their venality. Predictably, the weeds overtake the garden, all-consuming greed consumes the greedy, lives are lost, marriages ruined, careers wrecked - but oh, the mesmerizing way it all unfolds. The Force has many disagreeable moments but, like the junkies at its core, you can't give it up as it pulls you along, faster and faster until you crash.