by Don Winslow ★★★☆☆
I read this one cover-to-cover in a day, and while I'm a relatively quick reader, that rarely happens. So it must be great, right? Well, not entirely...
City of Dreams is the follow-up to City on Fire, Winslow's 2022 entry into the series that focuses on a fictional war between Irish and Italian mafia families in Rhode Island in the 1980s. If you're planning on reading this one, you most certainly read City on Fire first (you should), as City of Dreams picks up immediately where that left off. Without spoiling any of the events of the first novel, Danny Ryan and a contingent have set off for California to try to put some distance between themselves and the mafia war that has reached a crescendo.
Winslow opens the novel with a scene from 1991 in which Danny hears "You watch while we burn them alive. Then you.", before rewinding and starting the rest of City of Dreams from 1988, so there is a feeling of dread throughout. The story takes place primarily in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas with the Dogtown crew looking to lay low and ride out the current state of affairs. Danny must deal with competing motivations from among his lieutenants, while also balancing a wide age gap between the oldest and youngest (and, as a result, vastly different levels of experience). And while it seems like things might just work out, the reader knows that it's all going to come crashing down given the preview we got at the start.
Like City on Fire, the prose and dialogue are hard-edged and punchy, and as a result one flies through the chapters when reading. Winslow's knowledge of the, shall we say, "less savory" components of society is once again on display, and I finished the book thankful to be a law-abiding citizen and not on the wrong side of any of the characters that are the focus of his book.
I enjoyed both novels, but I preferred City on Fire (my #12 book of 2022, and the Amazon Editors' #10) by quite a bit -- it felt more complete and more intricately plotted. City of Dreams suffers some, I think, because it likely is just the bridge between a strong start and what I am hopeful will be a strong finish. While occasionally that bridge can be the highlight of a trilogy (everyone loves The Empire Strikes Back best, right?), in this case I suspect it will be the low point, albeit a necessary one. It's missing some of the plot complexities of City on Fire, and it also features some bizarre choices by Danny Ryan that seem totally out of character for a man who was always careful and thoughtful in the first book. While love makes everyone foolish at some point, and Winslow has built a mafia-driven "Helen of Troy" scenario as the initiating event of the war at the heart the trilogy to underscore that point, the choices that Danny makes in City of Dreams feel a bit silly even by those standards. Don't say I didn't warn you!
If you enjoyed City on Fire, you'll probably enjoy this enough to give it a try, but temper your expectations.