18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A wild ride and a very fast read, January 23, 1998
Author Don Winslow wrote this book largely on a train during commutes and without an outline--and it shows. "The Death and Life of Bobby Z" is a story that goes where it wants when it wants at a furious pace. The setup for the story is fairly simple. A big-time loser of a prison inmate kills another inmate in order to prevent the same thing from happening to him. As it happens, he resembles the notorious drug dealer Bobby Z. So the feds offer him a deal. They want to trade the dealer to a Mexican drug kingpin in exchange for an agent, but Bobby Z happens to be dead. So if the loser will take the place of Bobby Z, they'll trade him and let him fend for himself. But the real Bobby Z, it turns out, has fathered a child, whom the imposter Bobby Z takes under his wing while fleeing from just about everybody and fleeing across Mexico and California.
One of the most compelling aspects of "The Death and Life of Bobby Z" is the style in which Winslow writes. The novel is almost conversational, and Winslow includes liberal doses of California surfer and Mexican jargon. To his credit, Winslow aptly pulls off what could have been an abysmal experiment. The style works with the plot to make this novel one of the fastest reads in a long time.
On an unrelated note, there is a Don Winslow who writes what can politely be called "erotic" novels. These are two entirely different people. The Winslow who wrote "The Death and Life of Bobby Z" is the author of the Neal Carey series ("The Trail to Buddha's Mirror," "A Cool Breeze on the Underground," etc.). In addition, he wrote "A Winter Spy" under the name McDonald Lloyd.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
not as good as California Fire & Life, but not bad, July 28, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Death and Life of Bobby Z (Mass Market Paperback)
This is obviously a younger book than California Fire and Life, but Winslow does have a knack for taking an intriguing situation and pulling it all together somehow. He seems to have lots of good ideas - a love story, a drama, a larger-than-life hero, a loser, a military thriller. Maybe next time he won't try to cram all five of these into one novel. The Life and Death of Bobby Z is pretty good but probably could have been fleshed out 100 pages or so. Seems as if Winslow is in a rush to get to the next scene. The book is 250 pages. Thomas Hardy would've written the story as 2,500 pages (his characters take 12 pages to go from the porch to the mailbox, but you sure know every tree in the yard by the time they get there, as well as the genus and species of every animal in sight), but I'd settle for a nicely done 500-page Winslow novel. I think he's going to be very good as his writing matures.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Defined by its small touches, February 10, 2006
This review is from: Death and Life of Bobby Z (Mass Market Paperback)
"Here's how Tim Kearny gets to be the legendary Bobby Z.
How Tim Kearny gets to be Bobby Z is that he sharpens a license plate to a razor's edge and draws it across the throat of a humongous Hell's Angel named Stinkdog, making Stinkdog instantly dead and a DEA agent named Tad Gruzsa instantly happy.
"That'll make him easier to persuade," Gruzsa says when he hears about it, meaning Kearney of course, because Stinkdog is beyond persuasion at this point."
Thus begins The Death and Life of Bobby Z, one of 1997's most entertaining books. Gruzsa is happy because he sees Kearny as the key to his plan to infiltrate the operations of Don Huertero, the biggest drug lord in northern Mexico. Huertero wants to trade captured DEA agent Arthur Moreno for the legendary dope smuggler Bobby Z, an associate of his he has never actually seen. Unknown to Heurtero, Bobby Z has died in custody. Gruzsa, who wants his man back at all costs, wants three time loser Kearny, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Bobby, to impersonate him.
Kearny, not exactly in a position to bargain, agrees. Before arranging the swap, Gruzsa gives Kearny intensive training in all things Bobby, from his mannerisms down to intimate details of his illegal business operations. It looks like Gruzsa's idea will work, but something goes wrong at the swap and people start shooting. When the dust clears, Kearny finds himself in the middle of a luxurious desert compound belonging to Huertero's number two man, Brian Cervier.
Kearny is accepted as Bobby Z, and discovers some remnants of Bobby's past--a former lover, and a six year old boy she claims is Bobby's son. All appears to be going well, until he discovers that Huertero wants to kill Bobby for a wrong perpetrated against Huertero's daughter. Kearny flees into the desert, accompanied by Bobby's son, with whom he has forged a strong bond. The rest of the novel deals with Kearny's to evade Heurtero's flunkies, the DEA, Stinkdog's brother Angels and Bobby Z's Judas of a business partner back in the States. In the process, relying on his wits and Bobby Z's aura, Kearny's adds to the growing legend of Bobby Z.
The Death and Life of Bobby Z is one of those books you feel obligated to pass on to other readers--the first three chapters of the book are about as fast and funny a piece of writing you'll ever read. Winslow, being human, couldn't possibly keep this up through an entire book, but he comes damn close. The novel, which screams to be made into a movie, is defined by its small touches--Kearny and the six year old pretending to be X-Men Cyclops and Wolverine as they fight off a small army in the desert, the Beau Geste motif of Cervier's desert compound, the wino named One Way who plays John the Baptist to Bobby Z's Jesus--all these give this book a special magic. That, combined with Winslow's humorous dialogue and his skill at conveying explosive action, makes this a must read.
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