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"The Dawn Patrol" by Don Winslow, (Knopf, 303 pages $24).
It doesn't look like I'll be making it to the beach too often this summer. That won't stop me from reading some good beach books, though. They should be light as a summer breeze — nothing heavy or mind-numbing. Not over 1,000 pages, please.
"The Dawn Patrol" by Don Winslow is the perfect summer hybrid novel — surfer crime fiction. The Dawn Patrol are surfers at Pacific Beach in San Diego. They are Boone Daniels, Hang Twelve, Dave the Love God, Johnny Banzai, High Tide and Sunny Day.
They speak "Surfbonics," a surfer language with expressions like "epic macking crunchy." As the book begins a huge storm is coming in from the Pacific and the Dawn Patrol is excited at the prospect of surfing monster waves that the storm will cause.
Daniels is a former cop turned private eye. Unfortunately, a case has just come his way. He would rather surf than work. Too bad — an exotic dancer just took a nose dive from a hotel balcony. Did she jump? Or was she pushed? An attorney named Petra hires Boone to find out what really happened. As one could expect in this kind of book in this particular environment, Petra is drop dead gorgeous.
This potential murder is a downer but the "The Dawn Patrol" stays loose. This is the beach, after all. Boone is annoyed by this search for a murderer. He prefers looking for killer waves. Surfing always takes priority over working.
Boone and Petra cruise in the Boonemobile, his decrepit van, looking for clues. When we reach the conclusion of this summery read, we do encounter some heavy crimes. Even so, Winslow paints with light strokes. Bad stuff happens but hey, look at that wave. It's time to surf.
Winslow is a former private eye. His passion for surfing pulsates throughout this novel, surging with the steady rhythm of breakers crashing into Ocean Beach. The big storm comes in and Sunny Day gets her shot at the massive surf. Even if you have never surfed before when you catch the wave of Winslow's prose you'll feel the thrill.
"She's in the green room, totally inside the wave. There is nothing else, just her and the wave, her in the wave, her wave, her life." Onlookers fear they won't see her come out of it again.
"Then a blast of white water shoots sideways out of the tube and the woman shoots out, still on her feet, her left hand touching the back of the wave, and the crowd breaks into a cheer." Inspired writing is so exciting.
It gets even better. "She's high in the air, high over the wave, and as she jumps off the board, she does a full somersault before she hits the water on the far side of the wave."
So you can't make it to the beach? No worries. Don Winslow brings the beach right to you with "The Dawn Patrol." It's "epic macking crunchy." - goto
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 7/14/08; 12:15:01 AM
from the dept.
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