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Summary
Summary
Published to coincide with the release of Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone's major film of Savages from Universal Pictures in July 2012--starring John Travolta, Blake Lively, Benecio Del Toro, Uma Thurman, Emile Hirsch, Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, and Salma Hayek--this is the much-anticipated prequel to Don Winslow's acclaimed New York Times bestseller.
In Savages , Don Winslow introduced Ben and Chon , twenty-something best friends who risk everything to save the girl they both love , O. Among the most celebrated thrillers in recent memory--and now a major motion picture directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone--Savages was picked as a best book of the year by Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly , Janet Maslin in The New York Times , and Sarah Weinman in the Los Angeles Times.
Now , in this high-octane prequel , Winslow reaches back in time to tell the story of how Ben , Chon , and O became the people they are. Spanning from 1960s Southern California to the recent past , The Kings of Cool is a breathtakingly original saga of family in all its forms--fathers and sons , mothers and daughters , friends and lovers. As the trio at the center of the book does battle with a cabal of drug dealers and crooked cops , they come to learn that their future is inextricably linked with their parents' history. A series of breakneck twists and turns puts the two generations on a collision course , culminating in a stunning showdown that will force Ben , Chon , and O to choose between their real families and their loyalty to one another.
Fast-paced , provocative , and wickedly funny , The Kings of Cool is a spellbinding love story for our times from a master novelist at the height of his powers. It is filled with Winslow's trademark talents--complex characters , sharp dialogue , blistering social commentary--that have earned him an obsessive following. The result is a book that will echo in your mind and heart long after you've turned the last page.
Author Notes
Don Winslow was born in New York City on October 31, 1953. He received a degree in African history from the University of Nebraska. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked as a movie theater manager, private investigator, safari guide, actor, theater director and consultant. His works include A Cool Breeze on the Underground, The Death and Life of Bobby Z, The Winter of Frankie Machine, Savages, The Kings of Cool, The Cartel, and the Neal Carey Mysteries series. His novel California Fire and Life won the Shamus Award. In 2016, he won the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best crime thriller of the year for The Cartel. He has also written for film and television.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This prequel to Savages, Winslow's 2010 bestseller and now an Oliver Stone-directed big-budget film, features the author's trademark punchy dialogue, and will more than satisfy fans of drug-crime thrillers. Here, Winslow provides the background story of Savage's three main characters: Ben, Chon, and O. Ben and Chon sold marijuana in Laguna Beach, California, before running afoul of a vicious Mexican drug cartel, which abducted O, the dealers' mutual love interest, and ushered the pot-peddling trio into a sordid world of violence and corruption. But that all happened later-this story opens in 2005, with the carefree 20-something friends playing a game in which they predict "each other's sexual preferences," and soon shifts back to 2003 to offer a somewhat unconvincing explanation for how the drug-dealing began: "Actually it was the fact that O had no freaking idea what she was going to do with her life that led Ben and Chon into the marijuana business" as a way to claim a "vocation." Later, the story leapfrogs back even further in time to 1967 to reveal the origins of an earlier drug ring-one with foreboding familial ties to the focal trio. As with many prequels, this will work best for those already familiar with Savages, but on its own, Winslow's penchant for consistent entertainment makes it a great read in its own right. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Money may make the world go - round, but drugs make it spin out of control. That's one of the many deadly lessons in best-seller Winslow's breathless prequel to 2010's Savages. Here readers learn the blistering backstories of twentysomething buds Ben and Chon as well as O, the rebellious babe they both love. Beginning his tale in the 1960s, Winslow paints an unsettling portrait of the underbelly of Southern California, from pot- and coke-dealing hippie parents to Mexican gang leaders who compose messages with human entrails. Surf bums, beatniks, and Botox-pumped beauties play pivotal roles in the three characters' lives. (Especially memorable here is O's bubble-headed mother, dubbed PAQU Passive Aggressive Queen of the Universe.) Winslow serves up nonstop action, tempering the tension with his trademark razor-sharp wit. Military man Chon believes in microwave karma . . . what goes around comes around, in a freaking hurry and usually with ill intent. Published to coincide with the release of Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone's adaptation of Savages, this cool, clever entry is sure to be a royally popular summer read.--Block, Allison Copyright 2010 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Winslow offers a prequel for his drug-war epic Savages (2010). The year 2005 finds Ben Leonard and his buddy Chon doing what they do best: helping Orange County get high on Ben's custom-bred hydroponic grass. So successful is their business, in fact, that Duane Crowe, of The Association, pays Ben a visit gently suggesting that they either submit a monthly charge to the established network of importers or take their business elsewhere. Chon is not the person to take this challenge lying down, and soon he's struck preemptively at a couple of Association minnows he unwisely leaves alive--a decision that acts like the starting gun at a marathon. Quick as a sentence fragment, Winslow is piling on the violence, the flashbacks to an earlier generation of Southern California surfers and hippies, and the one-word paragraphs, as he makes a strong bid for the James Ellroy Award for Self-Indulgent Prose. Since fans know that Ben and Chon and their childhood friend O-for-Ophelia will still be around to peddle primo product in Savages, The Association's threats don't carry the menace they would outside the wonderful world of prequels, and readers are free to enjoy the proceedings as deliriously overgalvanized, intermittently hilarious ritual. The walk-ons who pop up just long enough to get caught in the crossfire are too interchangeable for tears, and not even Chon's deployment to Afghanistan and his encounter with a bomb are cause for alarm. The only blemish in the blood bath is the pretense, late on in the proceedings, that Chon and O are learning something important about their fathers. Sorry, gang, but you're in the wrong pew.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The sins of the fathers and mothers are wrought upon sons and daughters in this prequel to Winslow's acclaimed Savages. Cutting their teeth as runners for their drug-dealing parents in sunbathed Laguna Beach, CA, teenagers Ben, Chon, and O slither between the hippie cave dwellers of the canyons and the ocean-view mansions of the mega-rich. Chon breaks from the beach crowd and joins the military, but upon his return he easily returns to the chaotic marijuana trade of his father. It's hard to turn down the money, and it gives Chon time with his pals Ben and O, who give his life meaning and stability. Caught among crooked cops, a publicity-seeking DEA agent, and the violent Mexican drug cartels, the trio become modern-day versions of Bonnie and Clyde as they fight to escape the crossfire. Friends over family is the clear choice in this adrenaline-fused collision of generations. Verdict Published to coincide with the release of Oliver Stone's movie version of Savages, this is another Winslow roller-coaster thriller. Set against the lush backdrop of Laguna Beach, it graphically depicts the ferocious drug trade and shows the reader how the characters of Ben, Chon, and O came to be the darkly engrossing twentysomethings of Savages.-Susan Clifford Braun, Bainbridge Island, WA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
The Kings of Cool: A Prequel to Savages By Don Winslow Simon & Schuster, Incorporated ISBN: 9781451665321 Fuck me. Laguna Beach, California 2005 2 Is what O is thinking as she sits between Chon and Ben on a bench at Main Beach and picks out potential mates for them. " That one?" she asks, pointing at a classic BB (Basically Baywatch ) strolling down the boardwalk. Chon shakes his head. A little dismissively, O thinks. Chon is pretty choosy for a guy who spends most of his time in Afghanistan or Iraq and doesn't see much in the way of anything outside cammies or a burqa. Actually, she can see how the burqa thing could be pretty hot if you played it off right. Did, you know, the harem thing. Yeah, no. The burqa ain't gonna work for O. You don't want to hide that blonde hair, you don't want those bright eyes peeking out from behind a niqab . O was made for sunshine. California gurl. Chon, he ain't small but he's thin. O thinks he looks even thinner than usual. He's always been cut, but now it looks like he's been carved with a scalpel. And she likes the short, almost shaved, hair. "That one?" she asks, jutting her chin at a tourist-type brunette with really big tits and a retroussÉ nose. Chon shakes his head. Ben remains silent, sphinx-like, which is a role reversal, because Ben is usually the more verbal of the two. This isn't a high bar to jump, as Chon doesn't talk a lot, except when he goes off on a rant; then it's like you pulled the plug from a fire hose. While Ben is the more verbal, O considers now, he's also the less promiscuous. Ben is more Consecutive Monogamy while Chon is more Women Are To Be Served Concurrently. Although O knows for a fact that both of them--albeit Chon more than Ben--take full advantage of the Tourist Chicks who watch them play volleyball here at the beach, just a few convenient paces from the Hotel Laguna--encounters she refers to as FRSO. Fuck--Room Service--Shower--Out. "That pretty much sums it up," Chon has admitted. Although at times he skips the room service. Never the shower. Basic rule of survival in the Greater Cross V Crescent Sandbox Tournament: If there's a shower, take it. He can't shake off the habit at home. Anyway, Chon admits to doing matinees at the Hotel Laguna, the Ritz, the St. Regis, and the Montage with not only tourist women but also Orange County Trophy Wives and divorcÉes--the difference between the two being strictly temporary. That's the thing about Chon--he's totally honest. No pretensions, no evasions, no apologies. O can't decide if that's because he's so ethical or because he just doesn't give a fuck. Now he turns to her and says, "You have one strike left. Choose carefully." It's a game they play--ODB--Offline Dating Baseball. Predicting each other's sexual preferences and hitting for a single, a double, a triple, or a Home Run. It's a really good game when you're high, which they are now, on some of Ben and Chon's supremo weed. (Which is not weed at all, but a top-of-the-line hydro blend they call Saturday In The Park because if you take a hit of this stuff any day is Saturday and any place is the park.) O is usually the Sammy Sosa of ODB, but now, with runners on first and third, she's striking out. "Well?" Chon asks her. "I'm waiting for a good pitch," she says, scanning the beach. Chon's been in Iraq, he's been in Afghanistan . . . . . . Go exotic. She points to a beautiful South Asian girl with shimmering black hair setting off her white beach dress. "Her." "Strikeout," Chon answers. "Not my type." "What is your type?" O asks, frustrated. "Tan," Chon answers, "thin--sweet face--big brown eyes, long lashes." O turns to Ben. "Ben, Chon wants to fuck Bambi." Excerpted from The Kings of Cool: A Prequel to Savages by Don Winslow All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher. Excerpted from The Kings of Cool: A Prequel to Savages by Don Winslow All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
