Winslow's second book, The Trail to Buddha’s Mirror, continued the Neal Carey saga. With a wife and young son, Winslow went back to investigative work, mostly in California, where he and his family lived in hotels for almost three years as he worked cases and became a trial consultant.

While traveling between Asia, Africa, Europe and America, Winslow wrote his first novel, A Cool Breeze On The Underground, which was nominated for an Edgar Award and a Shamus Award for Best First Novel. He left to get a master's degree in military history and intended to go into the Foreign Service but instead joined a friend's photographic safari firm in Kenya. He led trips there as well as hiking expeditions in southwestern China, and later directed Shakespeare productions during summers in Oxford, England. Winslow's travels took him to California, Idaho and Montana before he moved to New York City to become a writer, making his living as a movie theater manager and later a private investigator in Times Square – ‘before Mickey Mouse took it over’.

While in college, he traveled to southern Africa, sparking a lifelong involvement with that continent. He majored in African history at the University of Nebraska. They inspired Winslow to become a storyteller himself. He credits his parents for preparing him to become a writer: his mother was a librarian and his father was a non-commissioned officer in the United States Navy who told stories and invited Navy friends around who told more. He grew up in Perryville, a beach town near the village of Matunuck, Rhode Island. Winslow was born on October 31, 1953, in New York City. Don Winslow (born October 31, 1953) is an American retired author best known for his award-winning and internationally bestselling crime novels, including Savages, The Force and the Cartel Trilogy.

Don winslow the force series