Hey -- go read this book. Then, when the movie comes out, we can make fun of Blake Lively together.

These days, I'd probably site four different writers who've most influenced my own fiction writing, some subtly, some more directly. In most cases, it's more of a fantasy standard toward which I aspire rather than a skill I come anywhere near mastering -- BUT, either way, I'd be less inspired, less driven to write, less comfortable trying new techniques and less imaginative were it not for the talented Jeffrey Lent, George Pelecanos, James Ellroy, and (recently) Don Winslow. I'd give Jodi Picoult an honorable mention, not so much for her prowess with the pen, but for her beach-read appeal and massively successful formula that makes every one of her novels equally palatable. Which translates into dollars. Which I admire.

Anyway -- I read Don Winslow's latest, "Savages" on a flight last week, and after finishing it, I notice that there's a quote from Ellroy on the cover wondering why Winslow isn't a household name yet.

I thought the same thing.

I also thought, "this guy definitely grew up reading James Ellroy -- they do the short, snappy prose and visually-important dialogue better than anyone."

In a nutshell, this is the sort of "quick-and-dirty" story of a couple of southern California marijuana growers who produce a product SO GOOD the Mexican cartels decide they want a piece of the action (and then basically pull bad "Mexican Drug Cartel"-type stunts in a violent effort to force the So-Cal dudes to wholesale their product to the drug lords south of the border). Kidnapping, extortion, blackmail (and beheadings!) follow.

It's a sort of "The Hills" meets "Traffic" take on the Baja drug trade, written in a style more akin to literary Tweets than serious fiction -- lots of unexpected paragraph breaks that visually separate one thought from the next -- words and phrases repeated several times over the way we might bat them around in our own head while we're trying to solve a problem. Just enough southern California drug lingo to make me feel old and outta-the-loop, but not so obscure I couldn't figure out what things meant in context. Speaking of context, Winslow does a great job of tossing in some conversational Spanish in a way that non-Spanish-speaking readers are able to infer what's being said. Which takes some skill, actually.

I would gripe about the ubiquitous "female character as little more than sex vehicle," dilemma, since the "O"phelia brat is precisely that -- a girl who's stoned out of her mind so chronically that she's just a warm body down for threesomes with her 2 "best friends," (the weed-growing-gentlemen), BUT, Winslow manages to toss in a reasonably tough, street-smart, surprisingly feminine Cartel queen who outsmarts her hangers-on and actually puts up a great fight in the end. So, we'll call the book Net Zero in the female department. Pass-around Girl gets canceled out by Badass Den Mother.

It's a quick read -- I finished it in about 6 hours of flight -- and I'd be lying if I said the ending was....satisfying, BUT -- the writing is exceptionally crafted, the action well-paced, and the characters flawed enough to be compellingly sympathetic. Yes, it's violent. Yes, it fairly glamorizes the drug trade (particularly with the addition of the Humanitarian Grower who forsakes his million-dollar pad in favor of a third world Habitat for Humanity habit in an obvious bid by Winslow to cast the American kingpins as The Good Guys), BUT, it's such a fun, quick trip through the sordid that I'll call it a "Pharmaceutical Escapism" brand of niche fiction that puts Bret Easton Ellis to shame (I'm admittedly Anti-Ellis, so there's my disclaimer).

I'm curious to see how they tackle the movie -- I suspect it will be a great screenplay, because the book itself reads more like a script.