DANA POINT, Calif. — A hard rain passed over Dana Point. Seals swam beneath broken clouds. A chill settled in amid the scent of cut bait, but no boats were sailing for open water. "You know," said Don Winslow, nodding toward the marina and the sea beyond, "they used to drop marijuana bales out there and boats would go get them."
Winslow is intimate with illicit patterns in pretty places. He knows the coves, the surf boys, the sins past the breakwater. The bruises up the coast. One of America's best crime novelists, Winslow, an Irish Catholic kid who found fortune later in life, can, when the politics strike him, evince the heart of a fighter. One need only mention Fox News or any number of Donald Trump acolytes.
"The Lauren Boeberts and Tucker Carlsons of the world are the classic schoolyard bullies," he says. "They talk tough, but the second you punch them in the nose, they go running and crying to teacher."
