The Force

A Novel

By: Don Winslow

Narrated by: Dion Graham

Instant New York Times Bestseller

Best of 2017 - included on best-of lists by the New York Times, NPR, Barnes & Noble, Publisher's Weekly, LitHub, BookPage, Booklist, TheRealBookSpy.com, the Financial Times (UK) and the Daily Mail (UK)

“The Force is mesmerizing, a triumph. Think The Godfather, only with cops. It’s that good.”

— Stephen King

The acclaimed, award-winning, bestselling author of The Cartel—voted one of the Best Books of the Year by more than sixty publications, including the New York Times—returns with a cinematic epic as explosive, powerful, and unforgettable as Mystic River and The Wire.

Our ends know our beginnings, but the reverse isn’t true . . .

All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop.

He is “the King of Manhattan North,” a, highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the real leader of “Da Force.” Malone and his crew are the smartest, the toughest, the quickest, the bravest, and the baddest, an elite special unit given unrestricted authority to wage war on gangs, drugs and guns. Every day and every night for the eighteen years he’s spent on the Job, Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps. He’s done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean—including Malone himself.

What only a few know is that Denny Malone is dirty: he and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash in the wake of the biggest heroin bust in the city’s history. Now Malone is caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive, body and soul, while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all.

Based on years of research inside the NYPD, this is the great cop novel of our time and a book only Don Winslow could write: a haunting and heartbreaking story of greed and violence, inequality and race, crime and injustice, retribution and redemption that reveals the seemingly insurmountable tensions between the police and the diverse citizens they serve. A searing portrait of a city and a courageous, heroic, and deeply flawed man who stands at the edge of its abyss, The Force is a masterpiece of urban living full of shocking and surprising twists, leavened by flashes of dark humor, a morally complex and utterly riveting dissection of modern American society and the controversial issues confronting and dividing us today.

Page Turner

Great writing and performance. Action throughout! Did not disappoint. Thank you once again, Mr. Winslow.

The Best

I’m only a couple hours into it & had to tell someone how great this book is. I haven’t read/listened to any Winslow novel I didn’t really enjoy but this is something else. It’s like rich music. The narrator found the perfect pace and pitch. Having said that, I had to slow it WAY down to be able to hear it. When I was able to relax into it, it became a pleasure to listen to. I think it’s better than if I were doing the reading.

Good first read!

I Really enjoyed the narrator and the action. The characters had great many different personalities in the book!

Gritty

This was a tough read… tragic, predictable, believable story line filled with tension, grief and oddly beauty and honesty.

The depth research done by a remarkable author Don Winslow 

This book captures an essence of New York City, police officer, and the challenges compromises, and  ethos. I have a New York City police sergeant I like Don Winslow and this is one of his best books. I highly recommend it. 

The wise guys are the cops

“I’ll fight fair when everyone does”…
Reminds me of the series The Shield only the scene here is New York!

Excellent

Realistic and gritty. The story pulls you into the world of corruption at the highest levels of politics, wealth, and policing.

Brilliantly written and narrated. But hard to listen to.

As always, a wonderfully crafted story from Don Winslow. At the same time this was possibly the darkest read I’ve done in a while, where everything and everyone, sympathetic villain or flawed hero, end in destruction. Different genre of course but this hit me viscerally like a Joe Abercrombie novel.

Compelling story

Love the story telling behind this flawed character. Not all the way bad, but not good enough given his station. Great listen. Very dark.

Epic!

Don Winslow is a masterful story teller and he does it again! The story of Denny Malone, crooked NYPD detective, immediately grabs you and takes you on a wild, tumultuous, gripping, white-knuckled ride.

I love it when an author develops a protagonist with seeming despicable characteristics and makes you grow to like (dear I say "love") them, root them on, cheer for their success.

Equally masterful is Dion Graham's narration. Excellence all the way around.