Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Savages | 2010 | Don Winslow | Buy |
| 2 | I re del mondo | 2012 | Don Winslow | N/A |
| 3 | The Kings of Cool | 2012 | Don Winslow | Buy |
| 4 | Killer | 2016 | Don Winslow | N/A |
| 5 | The Power of the Dog | 2005 | Don Winslow | Buy |
| 6 | The Cartel | 2015 | Don Winslow | Buy |
| 7 | The Border | 2019 | Don Winslow | Buy |
The Savages series connects Don Winslow’s California crime fiction to his larger drug war narrative. Savages (2010) introduced Ben and Chon, two Laguna Beach marijuana growers whose business puts them in the crosshairs of a Mexican cartel. The Kings of Cool (2012) serves as a prequel exploring the backstory.
The series also includes the Power of the Dog trilogy books, which share the broader drug war setting and some overlapping themes. Winslow’s staccato prose style is at its most distinctive in Savages, with short, punchy chapters that read almost like a screenplay. The series spans from small-time California dealing to the geopolitical scale of the US-Mexico border conflict.