The Border

Starred review from February 25, 2019
In bestseller Winslow’s stunning conclusion to his monumental Cartel trilogy (after 2015’s The Cartel), Art Keller, now the head of the DEA, has spent decades waging a relentless campaign against the Mexican drug cartels. It’s now late 2012, and Adán Barrera, Keller’s longtime nemesis and the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, is missing and presumed dead. Violence soon escalates as the fractured remnants of Barrera’s organization struggle against a host of new players vying for control of the drug trade. The bottom has fallen out of the marijuana market, and heroin has once again become the drug of choice for a new generation of Americans hooked on opiate painkillers. When fentanyl, a lethal new synthetic opiate, hits the streets, not only are poor minority users dying but well-to-do white kids are overdosing in record numbers. Keller knows like nobody else that America’s “war on drugs” has been a complete failure, and he opts for a daring new clandestine approach: instead of targeting the suppliers in Mexico, he goes after the money in the States. With clear-eyed determination and an almost Shakespearean grasp of human nature, Winslow takes readers on an unforgettable journey. Agent: Shane Salerno, Story Factory.