Don Winslow

Hollywood.

The city where dreams are made.

On the losing side of a bloody East Coast crime war, Danny Ryan is now on the run. The Mafia, the cops, the FBI all want him dead or in prison. With his little boy, his elderly father and the tattered remnants of his loyal crew of soldiers, he makes the classic American migration to California to start a new life.

A quiet, peaceful existence.

But the Feds track him down and want Danny to do them a favor that could make him a fortune or kill him.

And when Hollywood starts shooting a film based on his former life, Danny demands a piece of the action and begins to rebuild his criminal empire.

Then he falls in love.

With a beautiful movie star who has a dark past of her own.

As their worlds collide in an explosion that could destroy them both, Danny Ryan has to fight for his life in a city where dreams are born.

Or where they go to die.

From the shores of Rhode Island to the deserts of California where bodies disappear, from the power corridors of Washington where the real criminals operate to the fabled movie studios of Hollywood where the real money is made, City of Dreams is a sweeping saga of family, love, revenge, survival and the fierce reality behind the dream.

Danny Ryan #2

City of Dreams

I would advise taking some blades and some kind of assault rifle before venturing in mine, too. 

Leonie

“Come on,” she says. “Loosen up. It’ll get you into your head.” “I wouldn’t go into my head,” Danny says, “without a flashlight and a gun.”

“I’m sorry,” Kevin says. He’s not— he’s just afraid of getting booted out of a world where they throw free money, free food, and free pussy at you. If they threw free booze, Kevin would never leave. (In fact, they do, Kevin just hasn’t figured out how to work that angle yet.)

I would 100% watch golf in that - and only that - case. 

Not that guy to get up in the morning, check your investments and go golfing with doctors and lawyers and stockbrokers. The only thing that could improve golf is snipers. Then those guys wouldn’t wear those stupid clothes, and it would sure as shit speed up the game.

The way Winslow writes is just on point. 

Kids— with their mothers— looking to break into show business. Weird, hyperactive, attention-deficient miniature drama queens running around the hallways singing Broadway show tunes, getting dolled up like molestation victims to meet with their pimp/ agent at the picnic tables out by the pool. The agents— who charge the parents up front for “representation and development”— book the families into this complex because it’s near the studios and so they only have to go to one place to rip off their clients. One-stop unarmed robbery is what Kevin calls it, and what the fuck, he wonders, am I doing in honest crime?

Ooh, but please do take full offense, though. 

Purgatory is the more realistic goal, hell a sad but distinct possibility. Maybe Martin did receive the last rites, so perhaps he’s skated through. 

Take him, Lord, he did what he had to do to live in the world that You created. No offense to Yourself, understand.

If you know you can't avoid something, let it play out under your terms and conditions. Works better. 

He lets it play out, lets them get it out of their system, knows it won’t last long. Three days later, they come to him, strung out, fucked out, and broke.

And face it— you do this “poor Danny Ryan,” innocent-victim shit. “Anything bad I’ve done it’s because someone else made me do it.” Grow up. You’re a leg-breaker, a stickup man and a killer. You’ve made your choices. Now make this one.

The wounded, they understand failing, they understand losing.

No one really knows why damaged people find each other. But they do. There’s an attraction of pain to pain, a magnetism of hurt, a mutual recognition that creates a haven of understanding. With that person, you don’t have to explain why you’re down, you don’t have to hear “suck it up,”you don’t have to pretend to be happy. The other damaged being just understands.

This but in every day life: Just because someone has a problem with me, doesn't mean i have to participate. His show, my decision not to turn up. 

Just because Peter has issued a death sentence, Chris thought, doesn’t mean I have to show up for the execution. They can hold it without me.

Really, i mean, did he not once think that could lead to trouble? Eejit. 

Okay, they could have lost the ten keys— not great but not fatal— but then Jardine got himself killed. Inconsiderate prick.

First of all, Don Winslow is one of my all time favourite authors and I won’t ever not pick up one of his releases because his style and the gut-heart-organ-wrenching stories he weaves with his characters are just perfect for me. I never know what happens next and that is a unique selling point for an adhd-brain who has read too many stories not to see where some plotlines are going.

This installment, loosely seen as a retelling of the odyssee (which is so fascinating to me, honestly, because you can see it, but he doesn’t hit you in the face with it every other page), does suffer under second book in a trilogy syndrome somehow. I know, it does fit the odyssee retelling part again, because a lot of that is waiting and suffering, too, but while I imagined this to pick up right where we left off not only in terms of plot (which he did) but also in regard to tension, it fell a little bit short for me. Where I was heartwrenchingly involved in the plot of the first book, not knowing which character I hope gets his HEA and which doesn’t deserve it (let’s be honest, none of them do, but what are we if not absolutely biased as readers), this book left me hanging dry a bit because while I was intrigued, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat, waiting for the next blow to fall and push all of the characters closer to their own personal misery.

It's still a good book, for sure! And it does leave me incredibly anxious for the pain waiting in the final instalment of this series, because that’s going to be pure agony and I know it.

But there was just this bit of a spark missing that I love so much about Don Winslow’s other works.

First of all, Don Winslow is one of my all time favourite authors and I won’t ever not pick up one of his releases because his style and the gut-heart-organ-wrenching stories he weaves with his characters are just perfect for me. I never know what happens next and that is a unique selling point for an adhd-brain who has read too many stories not to see where some plotlines are going.

This installment, loosely seen as a retelling of the odyssee (which is so fascinating to me, honestly, because you can see it, but he doesn’t hit you in the face with it every other page), does suffer under second book in a trilogy syndrome somehow. I know, it does fit the odyssee retelling part again, because a lot of that is waiting and suffering, too, but while I imagined this to pick up right where we left off not only in terms of plot (which he did) but also in regard to tension, it fell a little bit short for me. Where I was heartwrenchingly involved in the plot of the first book, not knowing which character I hope gets his HEA and which doesn’t deserve it (let’s be honest, none of them do, but what are we if not absolutely biased as readers), this book left me hanging dry a bit because while I was intrigued, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat, waiting for the next blow to fall and push all of the characters closer to their own personal misery.

It's still a good book, for sure! And it does leave me incredibly anxious for the pain waiting in the final instalment of this series, because that’s going to be pure agony and I know it.

But there was just this bit of a spark missing that I love so much about Don Winslow’s other works.

Hollywood. La ciudad donde se fabrican los sueños. Danny Ryan se ha dado a la fuga tras perder una guerra sangrienta que enfrentó a bandas criminales de la Costa Este. La mafia, la policía y el FBI lo quieren muerto o en prisión. Acompañado por su hijo pequeño, su padre anciano y los maltrechos restos de su facción de soldados leales, Danny emprende la clásica migración americana con destino a California, dispuesto a comenzar una nueva vida. Una existencia tranquila y pacífica. Los federales, sin embargo, dan con su rastro y le piden un favor que podría hacerle ganar una fortuna o costarle la vida. Y cuando en Hollywood empieza a rodarse una película basada en su pasado, Danny exige una parte de los beneficios y comienza a reconstruir su imperio delictivo. Entonces se enamora. De una atractiva estrella de cine que también arrastra un pasado turbio. Cuando sus mundos chocan provocando un estallido que podría acabar con ambos, Danny Ryan se ve obligado a luchar por sobrevivir en la ciudad donde nacen los sueños. O donde van a morir. Desde la costa de Rhode Island hasta el desierto de California donde se hacen desaparecer los cadáveres, desde los pasillos del poder de Washington donde se gesta la verdadera corrupción hasta los legendarios estudios de Hollywood donde se forjan auténticas fortunas, Ciudad de los sueños es una epopeya arrolladora en torno a la familia, el amor, la venganza, la supervivencia y la brutal realidad que se esconde tras el sueño.

City of Dreams Danny Ryan #2

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