'Probably the best cop novel ever written' Lee Child Don Winslow, the acclaimed author of the bestsellers The Cartel and The Power of the Dog, delivers a cinematic epic as explosive and unforgettable as Mystic River and The Wire. 'The Force is mesmerizing, a triumph. Think The Godfather, only with cops. It's that good.' Stephen King All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop. He is a highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the leader of 'Da Force'. Malone and his crew are an elite special unit given carte blanche to fight gangs, drugs and guns. Every day and every night for eighteen years, Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps. He's done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean-including Malone himself. What only a few know is that Denny Malone is dirty. Now he's caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive, body and soul, while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all. Based on years of research inside the NYPD, The Force is a searing portrait of a city on the edge and of a courageous, heroic, and deeply flawed man who stands at the edge of its abyss. 'One of the best thriller writers on the planet' Esquire