The explosive conclusion to the Danny Ryan trilogy… and also a very successful writing career

Sometimes you have to become what you hate to protect what you love.

Danny Ryan is rich.

Beyond his wildest dreams rich.

The former dock worker, Irish mob soldier and fugitive from the law is now a respected businessman – a Las Vegas casino mogul and billionaire silent partner in a group that owns two lavish hotels. Finally, Danny has it all: a beautiful house, a child he adores, a woman he might even fall in love with.

Life is good.

But then Danny reaches too far.

When he tries to buy an old hotel on a prime piece of real estate with plans to build his dream resort, he triggers a war against Las Vegas power brokers, a powerful FBI agent bent on revenge and a rival casino owner with dark connections of his own.

Danny thought he had buried his past, but now it reaches up to him from the grave to pull him down. Old enemies surface, and when they come for Danny they vow to take everything – not only his empire, not just his life, but all that he holds dear, including his son.

To save his life and everything he loves, Danny must become the ruthless fighter he once was – and never wanted to be again.

City in Ruins brings to a close Don Winslow’s final trilogy. Before City on Fire was published, the author announced that he was retiring at the end of the series. Despite only starting to read his work relatively recently (2017’s The Force), he quickly became a must-read author for me. Broken is one of my favourite short story collections, and I’ve eagerly anticipated every one of his new novels. While this may be his last, I am glad that I still have many from his backlist still to read. Anyway. I enjoyed City in Ruins, and I think fans of Winslow’s work will find plenty to enjoy.

The Danny Ryan trilogy is the epic story of the eponymous character. It started in Rhode Island, as a young Ryan watches the mob war between the Irish and Italian families boil over (City on Fire). After fleeing Rhode Island for California, Ryan gets hooked up first with a shady character in government intelligence, and later into Hollywood (City of Dreams). Now, he has found his feet and fortune in the gambling industry in Las Vegas. It’s an industry and community trying very hard to sever its sordid ties to organized crime — a sword of Damocles that hangs over Danny throughout his rise in the business. (Not to mention the dirty little secret of most of the fortunes made on the Strip).

The novel tells three concurrent stories: Ryan’s in Vegas, Chris Palumbo’s in Middle America and then back in Rhode Island, and also that of a murder trial in Rhode Island. The three threads are connected, but Winslow doesn’t do much to really tie them together — the connections were made in previous books in the series, but the characters’ lives have certainly branched away from each other by the time City in Ruins begins. I did find myself wondering where the author was going to take these, stories when the relevant characters were introduced. It was an interesting approach, and while it did at times feel like the Rhode Island mob stories drew attention away from Danny Ryan’s story, it did ultimately create a sense of continuity and lack of an ending — because, despite the end of a novel, the lives of those involved won’t end. (That’s all a bit vague, for which I apologize, but I want to avoid spoilers.)

I would have preferred more focus on Ryan and what was happening in Nevada, but each story shows off some of Winslow’s authorial gifts. The choice of approach did, however, make each story feel a bit underdeveloped — they could all have been a novel in themselves. Palumbo’s story, for example, had a lot of potential to fill hundreds of pages. The progression of events in Las Vegas ended up feeling a bit rushed, as Ryan’s seemingly idyllic life and success quickly started falling apart, as various forces assemble to destroy his career and life. Allies new and old come to his aid, as his enemies bring together a variety of antagonists with their own agendas and reasons for wanting to take Danny down. Rather than a smooth plot progression, there were a few events that seemed to lurch forward. Sure, life isn’t a smooth progression of events, but two of these storylines took leaps forward that felt a little bit like the author was keen to get to the end of the story — even if, as I’ve mentioned, the ending isn’t really an ending.

Despite this being a trilogy, it nevertheless didn’t feel as substantially built as the stand-alone novel The Force. Perhaps I’m just being greedy, wanting more of Winslow’s writing, knowing that this is his final book. But, I do think there was space to flesh out the story more, and would certainly have welcomed spending more time with the characters and their worlds. This trilogy has certainly had a cinematic feel to it, both good and bad, as it’s been gripping and fast-paced, but taking advantage of what the novel as a medium can offer authors — time and space to explore the characters more, for examples. As a result, I was sadly left with the feeling that City in Ruins is a good final novel, but not the author’s best work.

Winslow’s characters are well-drawn, and presented in excellent and tightly-written prose. I read the novel in three sittings — two of which took me well into the wee hours of the morning. (I haven’t had much time to read, recently, so my evenings are really the only time I get to settle down with a book. Which, in this case, led to me staying up way too late…) For those who are already fans of Winslow’s work, you won’t need any convincing to pick up this novel. For newcomers, I think this is a very good trilogy to start with — after finishing Danny Ryan’s story, you’ll have so much more to read, and I definitely recommend the author’s stand-alone novels and Power of the Dog trilogy.

*

Don Winslow’s City in Ruins is due to be published by William Morrow in North America and Hemlock Press in the UK, on April 2nd.

Also on CR: Reviews of The Force, Broken, City on Fire, and City of Dreams

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Review copy received via NetGalley