Ce roman de Don Winslow, le deuxième d'une trilogie, est plus faible que le premier. La première moitié, dédiée à la nouvelle vie de Danny Ryan et ses hommes de mains, fuyant la ville de Providence, n'a pas beaucoup d'intérêt, à part de préparer la seconde moitié, centrée sur l'implication de ces personnes dans le monde du cinéma à Hollywood. Le roman devient alors plus intéressant, même si le choix de Danny Ryan de s'afficher publiquement dans sa relation avec une actrice très renommée semble peu crédible de part la personnalité et l'intelligence du personnage mis en place par l'auteur. Ce choix causera la perte de cette actrice et une nouvelle fuite du personnage principal.
Il est dommage que l'auteur n'ait pas plus développé la deuxième partie du roman pour mettre en place quelque chose qui aurait été plus en ligne avec la personnalité de Danny Ryan. Dommage car l'auteur a mainte fois prouvé qu'il pouvait faire beaucoup mieux. ( )

Could not finish. Big disappointment for me after reading Power of the dog trilogy. Could not understand Danny Ryan's character. He seems confused in whole series. ( )

The second book in the Winslow trilogy focuses again on Danny Ryan who was forced to flee his hometown after he took some drugs from the Moretti family and then dumped them.

In this book, Danny is offered a second chance - time away from crime and the oportunity to go 'straight' although Hollywood movies, which he finds himself in, are probably not the best place to try this. Having asked his crew to keep a low profile, Danny falls in love with a Hollywood star and is splurged all over the papers. This brings him to the attention of those he doesn't want, and, like a hamster in a wheel, he is back in the destructive world of crime, gangs, drugs and death. The message here is that you can't ever really escape.

The ending is unusual. Danny eats magic mushrooms and sees his dead family and friends all with a message for him. Written with no punctuation to give us a sense of floating from one idea to another, it was not the sort of ending I expected. Like a scene in a film, it seemed as if Danny was going to go down in flames but I wanted him to get out of the 'life' and to live happily ever after. I doubt that is going to happen even in the final book. ( )

Have to say this Second Book in the Trilogy just keeps getting better.
Absolutely fantastic it’s no wonder it is being made into a film.
I am definitely looking forward to City In Ruins the Final Book in this Marvellous Trilogy.
On my To Be Read Again List. ( )

City of Dreams could not be finished by this reviewer. Just too depressing to hear about the characters' lives. There is too much killing, drugs, running from each other that the story had to be stopped. If one likes reading about the Italian and Irish gangs, then this is the book for them. Only three stars were unfairly given to this book. ( )