The Origin Story of Local Bestselling Author Don Winslow

Author Don Winslow begins and ends his recently completed crime trilogy in the same place, the idyllic beaches of South County in the summer sunshine.

It’s an apt reflection of his own life. Winslow, seventy, grew up in Perryville, near Matunuck. He left Rhode Island when he was seventeen, for a career that would take him around the world — Africa, China, directing Shakespeare in England, working as an investigator and trial consultant in California. Now he divides his time between California and the old family home in Perryville. 

Winslow has had bestselling success with books such as the Cartel trilogy, centered on the brutal drug wars at the Mexican border, and The Force, about corruption within the New York City police force. But he never set a novel in Rhode Island.

Until now. The final book in the Danny Ryan trilogy — City in Ruins — was published in mid-April. It follows the bestsellers City on Fire and City of Dreams.

Set in the eighties and nineties, the series follows Danny, initially a low-level player in organized crime, who gets caught up in the wrong side of a war between Irish and Italian factions in Rhode Island. Danny eventually flees to California and then Las Vegas, but the narrative frequently comes back here.

Why did it take so long for Winslow to return to his origins?

“I left when I was seventeen, and I would come back sporadically. About ten years ago, I would return for more extended periods to take care of my mother,” Winslow says. “And I found myself falling in love with the place again.”

Courtesy of William Morrow.

So Winslow and his family decided to rescue his parents’ house in Perryville, which was falling apart. “We thought ‘Do we let it go, or fix it?’ We decided to fix it.”

Winslow has announced City in Ruins will be his last book. He’s  not tired of writing, and he hasn’t run out of ideas. But he is turning his attention to politics, namely stopping Donald Trump. “I think we are at a crisis point in our democracy, and my energies are better spent there,” he says.

Winslow has almost a million followers on X (formerly Twitter), where he releases anti-Trump videos, the latest called #TrumpCultWakeUp, that garner millions of views. 

“Nothing will touch Trump’s hard-core base,” he says. “But I think you can peel away some of the softer edges. There are still people you can talk to and persuade.”

And Winslow may not be writing, but he’s still working on the trilogy. Sony 3000 has announced plans to make a movie based on City on Fire, starring Austin Butler of Elvis fame, as Danny Ryan.

The hope, Winslow says, is to shoot at least some of the footage in Rhode Island. “I’m excited about that,” he says. “I want to show the producers some locations.”