Brutal, searing, epic sequel to The Power Of The Dog - though reading the latter isn't essential, as the various low points of the Keller/Barrera hategrudge are succinctly presented, and then the book gets on with the business of fictionalising the horrors of the last decade or so of the drug war. Adan Barrera swans out of prison and goes to work re-establishing his power. Art Keller is, reluctantly, sent south of the US/Mexico border to track him down. But there are more players involved in the rising cartels than just Barrera, and they are embarking on a war of their own of unprecedented savagery, infecting every level of Mexican society with fear and corruption and bloodshed.

In terms of crime fiction as social document, this is the literary successor to The Wire. Winslow's been impressing with his distinctive prose style and the effortless cool of hos characters and his plots, but this surpasses Ellroy in its portrayal of a society brutalised by crime. Even the ugly moral choices made by Keller as he battles his way closer to Barrera are dwarfed by the sheer scale of the evil. A dark, passionate, angry, unflinching novel, and though it leaves the reader dazed and sobered and weary, it also exhilarates as a major piece of crime literature.