BROKEN
Don Winslow
William Morrow
ISBN-13: 978-0062988904
Hardcover
Crime Fiction

BROKEN by Don Winslow is a gift, one bequeathed at just the right time. What we have here is six original short novels, each of which read like short stories yet which contain the stimulating heft of full-length novels. It is a collection which is aimed boldly and squarely at two groups of readers, those being folks who have been with Winslow from the very beginning of his fiction-writing career (or have come to his work at a later point and hastened to fill the gaps) and those who are unfamiliar with his work, or only marginally aware. There is plenty here for both, with stories that introduce new characters and others which revisit old friends --- and enemies.

Folks who read my humble opinions regularly here are aware that I try to keep this space a “no-spoiler” zone. I am going to try to hew to that while discussing BROKEN, even though I am tempted to do so. Let me get it out of my system by first discussing “Paradise,” which bears the subtitle “Being the Intermediate Adventures of Ben, Chon, and O.” The trio of the piece --- being the sexually fluid O and the Eskimo brothers Ben and Chon--- were introduced in Winslow’s SAVAGES with backstory provided in THE KINGS OF COOL. “Paradise is set in Hanalei, Hawaii in 2008, where Ben, Chon, and O have traveled for a combined business and pleasure stay and find that by their mere presence they have inadvertently upset the delicate ecology of the local drug trade. They thus feel duty-bound to save their erstwhile partners in the proposed business venture, with markedly mixed results. I give away the trio’s identities only because of the (sub-) title reveal. As it happens, a couple of other folks previously introduced by Winslow --- one in my favorite title by him --- wander into the flora as well, each of whom packs a surprise or two. A walk-on of sorts also occurs in “The San Diego Zoo.” It’s a fairly innocuous title which begins when a San Diego patrolman named Chris Shea responds to a report of an armed chimpanzee at the zoo. What results earns Shea lots of YouTube notoriety as well an excruciatingly slow-budding romance (the real ones always are between Shea and a quietly fetching zookeeper. There’s a mystery here as well, however, consisting of how a chimp got ahold of a handgun, and Shea solves that one, too, with the encouragement of another character who plays a larger role in “Crime 101” with appears yet again in “Sunset.” “Crime 101” involves a very patient, very smart jewel thief who does painstaking research before each heist and is as careful in his execution as he is in his planning, spacing out each one so that as a group they appear to be unrelated, except to a cuckolded San Diego police detective. Then there is “Sunset,” which brings protagonists from two of Winslow’s early series together in an unforgettable tale about a wild hunt through San Diego for a fugitive from justice. It’s a terrific story whether you’re familiar with the principals or otherwise, one that will make you want to stop what you are doing and leave for San Diego just to walk in the footsteps of the characters. There is also a gem of a West Coast jazz playlist easter-egged into the narrative which supplies a perfect soundtrack for your reading not only of BROKEN but also of anything else.

That is not all you will find in BROKEN. The four stories mentioned above are bookended by the title story and ‘“The Last Ride.” “Broken” is a violent tale of revenge times two carried out on the streets and in the buildings of New Orleans with an over-the-shoulder view of its neighborhoods, as a police officer carrying an understandable grudge attempts to get his own back from an up-and-coming drug dealer. “The Last Ride,” which closes the collection is the very definition of a contemporary western in all the best ways. A somewhat jaded Border Patrol agent who feels that he has nothing left to lose finds himself haunted by a detained little girl and becomes determined to unite her with her mother, in spite of opposition on both sides of the border. It is hard to pick a winner among the stories in BROKEN but this is the one which stayed with me, reminding me, for reasons which I can’t quite describe, of one of John Steinbeck’s best-known works.

BROKEN is a collection that elevates and transcends the crime fiction genre from which it springs. Those waiting for the cable network adaptation of Winslow’s Cartel Trilogy will find BROKEN to be the perfect companion in the meanwhile. Very strongly recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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