Dawn Patrol - Don Winslow [0]
The Dawn Patrol
“The action revs up to a pulsating pace.… A rousing thriller with a sense of morality.”
—The Oregonian
“A great book.… Winslow fills his prose with a staccato, manic energy, stitching words into paragraphs like an expert surfer riding the waves. The Dawn Patrol is that smooth and seemingly effortless, a book that deserves to be a bestseller if ever there was one.”
—The Providence Journal
“Entertaining.… Finds seamy secrets lurk even in idyllic places.”
—Pittsburgh Tribune Review
“I’m hoping this changes things for Don Winslow, that this is a huge success, and that he is hereafter mentioned in the same breath as modern giants such as Michael Connelly and George Pelecanos, because this new book is one of the best private-eye novels I’ve read in years.”
—Cameron Hughes, January Magazine
“Winslow peels back the layers, showing the corrupt soul of a city paying the price for paradise.”
—Crimespree Magazine
“A high-octane tale [and] a stellar meditation on one of California’s favorite pastimes: surfing. Winslow’s measured pitch-perfect sentences bring to life the aching dreams and disappointments, both causal and devastating, that befall Boone and his close-knit circle of wave-riding friends.”
—Newsday
“A powerful, elbow-in-the-throat book.… Pounds its story forward like a relentless surf.”
—The Plain Dealer
“Don Winslow is like a wave-riding Elmore Leonard.”
—Outside
“The perfect summer hybrid novel.… Can’t make it to the beach? No worries. Don Winslow brings the beach right to you.”
—Dayton Daily News
“A tasty combo plate of laid-back surfing, Southern California weirdness and motley ethnic groups—plus passionate love songs to the monster ocean waves and bitchin’ fish tacos.”
—The Seattle Times
DON WINSLOW
The Dawn Patrol
Don Winslow is a former private investigator and consultant. He lives in California.
www.donwinslow.com
ALSO BY DON WINSLOW
The Winter of Frankie Machine
The Power of the Dog
California Fire and Life
The Death and Life of Bobby Z
While Drowning in the Desert
A Long Walk up the Water Slide
Way Down on the High Lonely
The Trail to Buddha’s Mirror
A Cool Breeze on the Underground
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, JUNE 2009
Copyright © 2008 by Don Winslow
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2008.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Winslow, Don.
The dawn patrol / by Don Winslow. —1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Surfers—Fiction. 2. Private Investigators—Fiction. 3. California—Fiction.
I. Title.
PS3573.I5326D38 2008
813’.54—dc22
2008006531
eISBN: 978-0-307-79379-9
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1
wave (n): a disturbance that travels through a medium from one location to another location.
Let me take you down, cos I’m going to, Strawberry Fields.…
Lennon/McCartney
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter