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Holistic Guidance - The Dawn Patrol
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List Price: $23.95
Our Price: $16.29
Your Save: $ 7.66 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Knopf
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307266200
ISBN: 0307266206
Label: Knopf
Manufacturer: Knopf
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2008-06-03
Publisher: Knopf
Release Date: 2008-06-03
Studio: Knopf
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Editorial Reviews:
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The author of The Winter of Frankie Machine (“another instant classic”—Lee Child) is back with a razor-sharp novel as cool and unbridled as its California surfer heroes, as heart-stopping as a wave none of them sees coming.
Boone Daniels lives to surf. Every morning he’s out in the break off Pacific Beach with the other members of The Dawn Patrol: four men and one woman as single-minded about surfing as he is. Or nearly. They have “real j-o-b-s”; Boone works as a PI just enough to keep himself in fish tacos and wet suits—and in the water whenever the waves are “epic macking crunchy.”
But Boone is also obsessed with the unsolved case of a young girl named Rain who was abducted back when he was on the San Diego police force. He blames himself—just as almost everyone in the department does—for not being able to save her. Now, when he can’t say no to a gorgeous, bossy lawyer who wants his help investigating an insurance scam, he’s unexpectedly staring at a chance to make some amends—and take some revenge—for Rain’s disappearance. It might mean missing the most colossal waves he’s liable to encounter (not to mention putting The Dawn Patrol in serious harm’s way as he tangles with the local thuggery), but this investigation is about to give him a wilder ride than any he’s ever imagined.
Harrowing and funny, righteous and outrageous, The Dawn Patrol is epic macking crunchy from start to finish.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: If you're a surfer, this book will frustrate you!
Comment: I am a surfer, and this book was rather frustrating to read. The terms Winslow uses are out dated and silly. Real surfers do not use them. He claims to use the Batiquitos Lagoon to use a zodiac boat to launch, and that is impossible. Mira Mesa in North County, San Diego - what? "Riptide"? No such word. I think he meant "rip current." He needs to do more research.
As for Sunny getting a sponsorship for riding one big wave, what a joke! You get sponsorship by winning contests (which he calls tournaments, ha) consistantly.
I kept shaking my head and laughing while I read this novel. If you don't surf, this book will be entertaining, but will leave you with inaccurate information about surfing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Everything tastes better on a tortilla
Comment: It's not all that often I read a crime novel that impresses me as truly new. But then, I've never read a surf detective novel before.
The Dawn Patrol is a group of lifelong friends who meet every morning to ride the waves of Pacific Beach, a surf town outside San Diego. When one of them, a small-time private eye, is hired to locate a witness for an insurance trial, the investigation rapidly spirals into pretty horrifying territory.
But the two things most interesting to me were the quality of the prose -- Winslow writes like a poet possessed -- and the interactions between the characters, which range from hilarious to heartbreaking. It's a funny, sad, beautifully rendered ride.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Entertaining page turner - tons of fun
Comment: The Dawn Patrol is tons of fun. As soon as I put it down, I could hardly wait to pick it up again. The Dawn Patrol is a fresh, funny, suspenseful crime thriller. The humor, for the most part, comes in the form of banter between a rag tag team of surfers who refer to themselves as The Dawn Patrol. One surfer is a cop and another (Boone, our hero) is a part time PI hired to track down a missing stripper, a case that will strain relationships and test the loyalty of The Dawn Patrol.
One of the strengths of the novel is how effectively it immerses the reader in San Diego Surf Culture. (As a Pearl Jam fan, I have often wondered what a `Gremmie' was in the PJ tune `Gremmie out of Control' & now I know). I learned, among other things, that legitimate surfers don't care for the Beach Boys. One character muses that if he had a machine to go back in time and could execute historical figures as babies, he may or may not be able to kill baby Hitler - but Brian Wilson's fate would not be nearly so ambiguous.
The mystery element is sufficiently complex to allow the reader to `peel back the layers of the onion' but avoids getting carried away with preposterous plot twists and turns. The novel is well plotted and builds suspense effectively, guaranteed to have you turning pages late into the night. The characters are likeable, although not especially well developed. While the characters may be stereotypical, I found the complicated nature of their relationships to be one of the strengths of the novel. In particular, I liked the `jump in' rule, where characters who are friends on the beach, assume roles on the street that put them in conflict with one another, including arresting each other.
This is easily one of the most entertaining novels I've read in a long time. The characters are a bit thin and the novel a little too lightweight for me to give it the `coveted five star rating', but if you're looking for a well plotted, consistently entertaining page turner you can't go wrong with The Dawn Patrol. Highly recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good book, but not Winslow's best
Comment: Boone Daniels surfs. And on the side, does some PI work to pay the bills. His group of friends and fellow surfers, his family, call themselves the Dawn Patrol. They include Boone, Sunny Day, Hang Twelve, Dave the Love God, Johnny Bonzai, and High Tide. Of course, those aren't their real names, at least not the names they were given at birth; they are the names given to each other for reasons known only to them, but for good reason. Hang Twelve has twelve toes, six on each foot; High Tide is a large man, Samoan, and the ocean rises like the tide anytime he enters the water; Dave the Love God is a life guard with tremendous success with the ladies (Dave the Life Guard, Dave the Love God...).
Boone has a history. Although he grew up surfing, he had another passion once, two of them really. First was his job as a San Diego Police Officer, where he worked with Johnny. His second was Sunny Day. He had problems at the first when he wouldn't let a fellow officer torture a man to learn the whereabouts of a missing young girl, causing him to be ostracized at work, eventually quitting, and falling into depression. He lost the second, Sunny, as a result.
Boone is hired by an attractive young lawyer, Petra Hall, who is representing an insurance company against Dan Silver, a not so likeable strip club owner and mobster who is trying to collect for a fire at one of his warehouses. The problem is one of his girls, Tammy Roddick, was there when he burned it down, so the insurance company won't pay. Petra's problem is Tammy is nowhere to be found, and one of her friends was found dead, with Tammy's ID.
As Boone and Petra are looking for Tammy, they seem to always be a step behind and confronted with complications, one of which is a young girl who is missing, bringing to the fore the last young girl Boone failed to find, maybe because he wouldn't go along with the torture of the suspect. Boone seems to find his chance at redemption in finding the girl, possibly costing him is PI license, his make-shift family, his freedom, and maybe his life.
The rest of the Dawn Patrol are busy with their lives, too. Sunny is wondering what happened between her and Boone and working to become the next woman surfing champion. High Tide is trying to help a family member back on the island get off drugs. Johnny is a detective now, trying to solve the murder of Tammy's friend. Dave the Love God is making some extra money running dope, but steps into something more serious. Hang Twelve is trying to keep his Dawn Patrol family together.
This most recent novel by Don Winslow, who I fell in love with after The Death and Life of Bobby Z, continues the downhill course his work has taken since its peak with The Power of the Dog. Although it is an entertaining read, it does not have the same explosive plot that his previous books have had.
The book is written in Winslow's typical style, jumping around a lot, filling in holes as the story progresses. A lot of the book is explaining the surfer lifestyle, the ins and outs of surfing, and the slang, making the reader understand what is the way of life for a surfer. Although it is somewhat necessary in the development of the characters, it is sometimes too much. I would prefer the character development through, well, their development instead of the continuing surfer analogy.
Finally, I thought the ending was a little light. I don't know exactly what I expected, but there was something missing, not quite preparing readers for a sequel, which Winslow hasn't had since his Neil Carey series, but also not as final as his other books.
Customer Rating:
Summary: read it anyway
Comment: You will figue out what is happening long before our hero gets clue one but who cares. The character development is stronger than one usually finds in a "So Cal noir time killer" like this. I greatly appreciated the back stories and historical backround of the area and Winslow has a definite ear for dialect. So ignore figuring out and ride this wave bra.
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