Have to say this Second Book in the Trilogy just keeps getting better.
Absolutely fantastic it’s no wonder it is being made into a film.
I am definitely looking forward to City In Ruins the Final Book in this Marvellous Trilogy.
On my To Be Read Again List. ( )

City of Dreams could not be finished by this reviewer. Just too depressing to hear about the characters' lives. There is too much killing, drugs, running from each other that the story had to be stopped. If one likes reading about the Italian and Irish gangs, then this is the book for them. Only three stars were unfairly given to this book. ( )

The single best use of mescaline in literature ever (yes, I read The Doors of Perception and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.)

I just gobbled this up, as I also did with the first in this series. I am always reading multiple books because I am a quivering ball of ADHD so while I can sink into a book for hours at a time, once I put it down I generally cannot pick it back up for a while. But this is the book I kept wanting to return to, night after night. I have been busy with work and social things, but I have spent most every alone moment for four days with this book. Thankfully I consumed this in audiobook form (beautifully read by Ari Fliakos, who also read the first in the series) or I am sure I would not have cleaned or done laundry or walked anywhere during that time.

In this book we return to the gangster with a heart of gold, Danny Ryan, in the hours after the event that closed out the first book, City on Fire. Danny is our Odysseus, and this leg of the journey takes him from New Hampshire to Southern California. If you read the first book you know that Danny is broke, in the middle of a hailstorm of grief, and in a lot of trouble at the end of the last book. He is Danny though, and things work out for Danny. I don't want to spoil anything but I will say he ends up dead center in the middle of a studio movie (not as an actor) and we find out there are more similarities than one might guess between the Irish mob in Providence and the LA mob behind the visual content we consume. The end of this, like the end of the last book, is like the finale of a good fireworks show, more and more and more until you think "okay already" and then just one more explosion that makes you realize you were wrong and you needed one more.

Great characters, new and old, utter carnage at random points interspersed with cute children and true love and honor and sweetness and also it is all funny as can be. Winslow says this is it. One more book left in this trilogy (which he says is already written) and that is the end. Luckily he has written a lot of books and they are pretty much all very good (or at least the nine I have read) but I still hope he unretires. He is the best. ( )

I read and enjoyed the first novel in this series, and I usually like Winslow. It's mandatory you read the first volume before this one. The second in the series of three just fell flat. I got about 2/3rds of the way through it and just quit. VERY different from the first one. Doubtful I'll bother with the third when it appears. ( )

I absolutely loved the first book in the trilogy, so I was excited to read part 2 of Danny's story. This picks up with Danny fleeing the northeast after his wife's death to head to CA. He is on the run from the law and the mob after destroying 10 kilos of heroin. Danny wants to stay away from the drug trade, he knew it was trouble from the start.
Now, Danny is trying to make a better life for himself and his son. Danny's father is dying and Danny is on the run. How can he break free.
I enjoyed this book, but the language and the rampant sex was a bit much. Still, I will wait to see what is next in book 3, the final book of Danny Ryan's story. ( )