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Jason Furman's Reviews > City on Fire
City on Fire (Danny Ryan, #1)
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This was a mediocre crime novel whose best aspect was the setting, a battle between Irish and Italian gangs in 1980s Rhode Island, moving between a cheap town on the shore to Providence. While the plot kept me going it was all clichés about mobsters, loyalty, reprisals, earners, etc., strung together in a plot that could have come out of Chat GPT.
The one novel element actually made it worse--it is a reworking of the Iliad (give or take). It began with a beautiful woman who is eventually stolen from her Italian mobster boyfriend by an Irish mobster (in the role of Paris) who was the son of the head of the Irish mob (in the role of Priam). I only realized this about a third of the way through but instead of adding to the novel it detracted. In part you knew what was going to happen (e.g., the Paris character's brother is the Hector character, he dies, gets dragged behind a car, and then his father has to go to his killer to retrieve the body). But even worse there was no depth or profundity to the echoes, like when the Priam character goes to the Achilles character to retrieve his son's body it feels perfunctory and unemotional.
Don't get me wrong, I mostly enjoyed reading this. But it was my first Don Winslow and I was hoping it would be better.
The one novel element actually made it worse--it is a reworking of the Iliad (give or take). It began with a beautiful woman who is eventually stolen from her Italian mobster boyfriend by an Irish mobster (in the role of Paris) who was the son of the head of the Irish mob (in the role of Priam). I only realized this about a third of the way through but instead of adding to the novel it detracted. In part you knew what was going to happen (e.g., the Paris character's brother is the Hector character, he dies, gets dragged behind a car, and then his father has to go to his killer to retrieve the body). But even worse there was no depth or profundity to the echoes, like when the Priam character goes to the Achilles character to retrieve his son's body it feels perfunctory and unemotional.
Don't get me wrong, I mostly enjoyed reading this. But it was my first Don Winslow and I was hoping it would be better.
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Reading Progress
December 17, 2023
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Started Reading
December 17, 2023
– Shelved
December 22, 2023
–
Finished Reading
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Ray
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rated it 2 stars
Dec 26, 2023 05:09AM
They have their own flaws, but The Power of the Dog trilogy is Winslow's peak and they're far better than the Danny Ryan series. Would recommend those if you ever want to give him another shot
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Ray wrote: "They have their own flaws, but The Power of the Dog trilogy is Winslow's peak and they're far better than the Danny Ryan series. Would recommend those if you ever want to give him another shot"Thanks, will check them out. I might even finish this trilogy on audiobook, they're short enough, but will see.
