The Dawn Patrol | 
 enlarge | Authors: Winslow, Don
Creator: Reader: To Be Announced
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $20.29
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Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 2908667
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 9
Pages: 8
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 6.5 x 4.5 x 2.9
ISBN: 1433214881
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781433214882
ASIN: 1433214881
Publication Date: June 17, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand new Book, ALL days Low Price !
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Product Description
The author of The Winter of Frankie Machine is back with another high velocity novelas cool as its California surfer heroes, as heart-stopping as the wave no one sees coming.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
 Entertaining page turner - tons of fun November 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
 A good book, but not Winslow's best November 8, 2008
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.
read it anyway October 17, 2008
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.
 Here's a great author that I just discovered!!! September 7, 2008
Up until last week, I'd never read anything by Don Winslow, or even heard of him for that matter. Another book reviewer recommended him to me, suggesting that I start with either Winslow's newest novel, The Dawn Patrol, or his book, California Fire and Life. What I did was buy both of them, along with Winslow's The Winter of Frankie Machine, which is being turned into a major motion picture by Robert DeNiro. I got them last weekend and quickly read The Dawn Patrol, thinking that it was going to be hard to get into because Southern California surfing is a major part of the book, and I've never been a big fan of surfing in general. I ended up falling head over heels in love with the novel and devoured it in two days. Now, I'm in the middle of Frankie Machine, praying the DeNiro will finish the movie adaptation of it and that the film will be out within the next year or two.
The Dawn Patrol refers to Boone Daniels and the small group of people that meet him every morning to surf the waves of Pacific Beach in San Diego. It also refers to the men who pick-up little girls every morning further up the coast so that they can sexually abuse them for the day. Daniels, who is now a private investigator after having served on the San Diego Police Department for three years, gets hired for a case that has him tracking down a female witness, who saw members of the Mob burning down a warehouse. The men who instigated the arson want the woman killed and in up murdering the wrong person by mistake. Daniels therefore has to find the real witness before the killers do and this inadvertently leads him to child sex ring operation and the evil people behind it. When Daniels was a police officer, he lost his job by doing the right thing and it led to a missing child never being found again. Daniels blames himself for that and still searches for the little girl during his spare time. Because of that, he won't allow any child to be abused if it's within his power to do something about it. The people behind the sex ring are going to have their hands full when Daniels starts hunting them with extreme prejudice, sensing that this is one way he can atone for his past mistake, even if it means his own death in the process.
I can't say enough good things about Don Winslow and The Dawn Patrol. I'm totally lost as to why this author isn't hitting the New York Times Bestseller list with every new novel that comes out. The Dawn Patrol is written with clear, sharp prose that brings to life Southern California and the surfing community, the city of San Diego, and the vast array of unusual and bizarre characters that inhabit this intense journey into the darkness of man's soul. Though quite serious at times, the novel is also funny in parts with Daniel's laid-back attitude about life and his close friends...that is until he begins the hunt for retribution. This is also the type of novel that you pray will eventually have a sequel to it. I don't know what Winslow is writing right now, but I hope Boone Daniels is definitely in it. This is a character that you quickly learn to care about and to root for as he takes out the bad guys. It's also important to note that the members of the surfing Dawn Patrol are also clearly portrayed as full and interesting characters, with each one playing an important part in the story. Highly recommended to those who love the PI genre and are looking for something slightly different, but that is well written with great characters, unbelievable suspense, and an ending you'll never see coming.
The only constant is change. August 31, 2008
Boone Daniels (ex-policeman and current private investigator) is a member of The Dawn Patrol. The Dawn Patrol consists of four men and one woman: Boone, Hang Twelve, Dave the Love God, Johnny Banzai, High Tide, and Sunny Day. All of them serious surfers and they're more than best friends; they are an ocean loving, fun seeking, surf family.
A few days before the biggest wave of their lives, a female lawyer comes to Boone for help. She is trying to locate a witness to a fire that she desperately needs to testify in an insurance fraud case. If Boone wasn't so broke and if Petra, the lawyer, weren't so beautiful, it would have been easy to turn the job down; the last thing Boone wants is to miss the biggest most prime wave of his life.
This was an extraordinarily fun novel, which covers a very serious issue. It takes place in San Diego; I've been there a few times, and it was fun to re-visit the area with Don Winslow's imagery. Having never experienced "catching a wave" either in reality or in a novel, this was a refreshingly different read. Whether you are from the East Coast, the West Coast, a beach bum, or a snow bunny, I think you'd enjoy, The Dawn Patrol.
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