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Loading... City on Fire: A Novel (edition 2022)by Don Winslow (Author)
Work InformationCity on Fire by Don Winslow
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I can imagine a reader with no familiarity with Homer and Virgil finding this a twisty and fresh take on the mob thriller--in one of the last places we haven't seen them done over and over again. Sadly, I'm not that reader. Once one is familiar with the events of Homer's Iliad and the subsequent tales of Aeneas, there is nothing surprising about anything that takes place here. All the thrills and unexpected are entirely absent. Being rewarded for being well read is not enough to ultimately save this derivative mobster tale. no reviews | add a review
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Fiction.
Mystery.
Thriller.
HTML: New York Times Bestseller! From the #1 internationally bestselling author of the Cartel Trilogy (The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and The Border), The Force, and Broken comes the first novel in an epic new trilogy. "Superb. City on Fire is exhilarating." â?? Stephen King "Epic, ambitious, majestic, City on Fire is The Godfather for our generation." â?? Adrian McKinty, New York Times bestselling author of The Chain Two criminal empires together control all of New England. Until a beautiful woman comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance, and set a city on fire. Danny Ryan yearns for a more "legit" life and a place in the sun. But as the bloody conflict stacks body on body and brother turns against brother, Danny has to rise above himself. To save the friends he loves like family and the family he has sworn to protect, he becomes a leader, a ruthless strategist, and a master of a treacherous game in which the winners live and the losers die. From the gritty streets of Providence to the glittering screens of Hollywood to the golden casinos of Las Vegas, two rival crime families ignite a war that will leave only one standing. The winner will forge a dynasty. Exploring the classic themes of loyalty, betrayal, and honor, City on Fire is a contemporary masterpiece in the tradition of The Godfather, Casino, and Goodfellasâ??a thrilling saga from Don Winslow, "America's greatest living crime writer" (Jon Land, Providence Journ No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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The plot -- a riff on the origins of the Trojan War, played out among the rival Irish and Italian mobs in mid-eighties Providence -- is standard crime-fiction stuff. There are ethnic tensions, generational conflicts, and complicated family loyalties. The working-class social milieu is also familiar. You can feel Winslow, on both fronts, working what's usually Dennis Lehane's corner. In [City on Fire], though, Winslow takes a different path through the material than either Lehane or (for that matter) Mario Puzo. His hero, Danny Ryan, is anything but a young man with a pedigree, destined for great things. He's a modestly talented, modestly accomplished, modestly ambitious gangster who longs for more respect and responsibility than he gets from those he serves.
When a slight at an end-of-summer clambake spirals into open warfare between rival ethnic mobs, Danny gets a far bigger shot than he ever dreamed of: a chance to establish himself as a great leader or die in the process. Winslow makes it clear, however, that Danny isn't a Rhode Island version of Joe Coughlin, let alone Michael Corleone. He alternates between brilliant improvisations and disastrous miscalculations, sometimes supported by those closest to him and other times undermined by them for their own purposes. The book -- first in a trilogy -- ends with him achieving one of his dearest wishes, but at a terrible cost. Danny is, throughout the story, plausibly and refreshingly imperfect.
[City on Fire] is a crime story, not an extended contemplation of the human condition, but it has more going on, I think, than many reviewers on LibraryThing have given it credit for. "Loyalty" and "respect" are old, old tropes in crime stories, but Winslow finds interesting things to do with them, using them in more complicated ways than he seems to be doing at first. Danny's complicated family life, particularly his relationships with his estranged mother and quasi-adopted parents, also turn out to be more intriguing than it appears at first glance.
One of the running themes of the story is how the weight of history (personal, family, community) and the push and pull of old obligations (real or imagined) steers our lives in directions other than the ones we might choose for ourselves, given the chance. In this, as in his evocation of the Narragansett Bay fog, Winslow gets the ineffable nature of the thing perfectly right. ( )