Savages by Don Winslow. He is also the author of "The Death and Life of Frankie Z" and "The Winter of Frankie Machine".

In some respects this picks up where his book "Power of the Dog" left off. He makes oblique references to a few of the events that took place in that book. However this book takes a different focus. It takes place in California. The protagonists are two twenty something former high school buddies, Ben and Chon and the girlfriend that they both share, Ophelia (better known as O). And yes she did earn that nickname.

Now the passive, liberal and guilt laden Ben and the right-wing, wired and cold Chon (he's an Iraq and Afghanistan SEAL veteran) have become Southern California's largest and most successful marijuana dealers. They have (at Ben's insistence) done this mostly non-violently, though there are times when Ben looks the other way while Chon does what needs to be done.

Now the Baja Cartel has decided that it needs to expand into retail marijuana sales. To this end it sends the two men a video showing the severed heads of men who DIDN'T listen to wise and generous merger offers.

When this fails to achieve the desired effect the Cartel kidnaps Ophelia to convice the duo to submit to a hostile takeover.

But Chon doesn't take kindly to threats and even non-violent Ben has some buttons you don't want to push. But how can two Americans outfight the Cartel?

Although this book got very good reviews in the NYT and from fellow writers Stephen King, Janet Evanovich, James Ellroy and Christopher Reich it sort of left me cold.

It wasn't BAD writing but in this book Winslow uses Ellroy's short direct punchy prose. There are lots of deliberate fragments, single verb sentences and so on.

If you like this cool. If not then it may give you a headache.

Also although Winslow teases with a Al Neri-like Cartel enforcer as an antagonist for the heroes, ultimately a lot of the story relies on the Cartel leaders and members being slightly less vicious and certainly much dumber than they are in real life. IRL organized crime cartel thugs kill people they think MIGHT be threats. They certainly don't wait around to find proof-especially if they don't even like the person under suspicion.

That or the triad relationship among O, Ben and Chon aside this was an okay book. I didn't think it was anywhere near as good as "The Winter of Frankie Machine" or "The Power of The Dog".