Don Winslow made his name chronicling Mexico’s drug wars in epic, sweeping novels that detailed American complicity in the mayhem south of the border. Now he has written a big, sprawling novel about dirty cops in the New York police department – The Force – which splashes into the debate about race and policing in the United States. They are venal and violent, steal drug money, break bones and snuff out lives. They lie, cheat, betray and scorn Black Lives Matter.

“Are there racist cops? Absolutely,” says Winslow, settling into an interview at a beachside diner near Los Angeles. “There are guys out there who are just overt racists.”

Which makes it sound like the author should beware next time he visits New York. In fact, it’s the opposite. Winslow could probably double-park a Hummer and not get a ticket. Cops will love this book, and love Winslow. The boys in blue of The Force are not villains, they’re heroes. They’re smart and brave but also flawed and wounded souls you root for even as they go astray. Hollywood has already snapped up the rights.

“I have a great deal of admiration for NYPD. I think most of the cops are trying to do a good job,” Winslow says. “Is there systemic corruption? No question. Often we the public have expectations of police that are both contradictory and in some ways impossible. We want perfect safety at the same time as we want absolute individual privacy and rights.”

Civil rights-loving liberals are especially culpable, says Winslow, who counts himself a left-leaning Guardian reader. “[There’s] a certain kind of hypocrisy or at least double standard about some of these things because we want to be safe. So sometimes we would turn a blind eye to cops taking shortcuts. And cops feel this intensely. They feel that pressure, they feel caught in that bind.”

In 20 novels, mostly mysteries and thrillers, Winslow, who lives near California’s border with Mexico, has specialised in all sorts of binds, not least the drug war – a folly, as he sees it, which has morally corrupted the US and unleashed hell across Mexico. His characters often start out wanting to do the right thing only to end up contaminated. The style is hardboiled; short paragraphs, graphic scenes, rapid-fire dialogue that’s close to the mould set by the likes of Elmore Leonard, Richard Price and George Pelecanos. He has also not shied away from controversial opinions either that often skewer both the left and right sides of the political debate, such as when he penned an op-ed for Esquire that claimed the push for legal marijuana exacerbated the drug war and the cartel violence.

In person, Winslow is gracious, soft-spoken and self-deprecating to a fault. A trim figure, he wears jeans, slip-on shoes and an untucked shirt. Daily hikes punctuate a gruelling writing schedule, which starts at 5.30am and wraps around 12 hours later. It’s paid off: he has won prizes and rave reviews from the New York Times, Stephen King, Lee Child and Michael Connelly.

The Force, he says, is the book he always wanted to write. He interviewed rookies and veterans and dedicated it to law enforcement personnel murdered in the line of duty during the writing, their names running over three pages. Set in his native New York with an Irish American protagonist from Staten Island, there is a hint of alter ego in detective sergeant Denny Malone, who leads an elite unit in north Manhattan.

‘Sometimes we would turn a blind eye to cops taking shortcuts. And cops feel this intensely. They feel that pressure, they feel caught in that bind.’ Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Winslow’s research identified flawed recruitment and training that gives lethal power to people who should never have been police – these are the ones who shoot fleeing people in the back, he says. He also encountered unconscious and semi-conscious bias, which results, for instance, in cops overestimating the age and therefore potential danger of black youths. “In a number of these shootings what you’re looking at is a fear reaction. Black Lives Matter definitely has a point. The numbers don’t lie in this regard. I’m glad the organisation exists.”

But BLM activists should broaden their focus, he says. “Are cops racist? Sure, as racist as the society they come from. The tragedy is that the police and inner city communities should be allies. Who suffers most from violent crime in America? Inner city communities. Who has a personal and professional interest in lowering that violence? Cops.”

Winslow favours gun control, drug legalisation and greatly reduced incarceration rates for non-violent crimes, for which he has received rightwing hate mail and death threats.Cracking down on immigrants revolts him. “The thought that you’re going to start doing mass arrests and deportations is vile. It’s deeply personal to me. These are our friends, our neighbours.”

He disdains Trump. “It makes me so fucking angry that this guy describes Mexicans as rapists and killers.” He shrugs off the observation that some of his own books depict Mexicans as rapists and murderers. He’s a crime writer, he says. He adds that his books that are set in the US, show Americans – of all backgrounds – doing nasty things.

He snorts at the proposed wall, saying it won’t curb drugs because most flow through legal entry points in trailer trucks. “You can build the biggest, best, most beautiful wall – it doesn’t matter if the gates are open, and the gates are open 24/7.” Greater interdiction, in any case, would only increase prices and cartel revenues. “If Trump was really looking for Mexicans to pay for the wall he should put in a call to Sinaloa. They’d probably build it for him.”

Intercepting the flow of guns and profits south would have more impact than targeting drug supply, he says. “We’ve been doing that officially for 50 years and what’s the result? Drugs are more plentiful, cheaper and more potent.”

Winslow also thinks Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, now jailed in New York, will spend the rest of his days locked up but make a plea deal, trading information for better conditions and avoiding a trial. His absence will have negligible effect on Sinaloa. “It’s like shooting the oldest, biggest elephant in the herd – sad for the elephant but it has no effect on the herd.” (Winslow used to be a safari guide in Africa.)

The Power of the Dog chronicled the drug war from the 1960s to the early 2000s. Winslow considered it a one-off plunge into Mexico’s horrors. Then the horrors, unbelievably, got worse. So he wrote The Cartel, published in 2015, bringing the story up to date, ending with the death of a Guzmán-type figure. Only for the violence to again worsen, with ever more baroque, grisly details. So Winslow is now working on a third book, as yet untitled, to make it a trilogy.

20th Century Fox has optioned The Force, with James Mangold set to direct it, and The Cartel, with Ridley Scott in the director’s chair and Leonardo DiCaprio mooted as the lead. Winslow has had mixed fortunes with Hollywood, starting with The Life and Death of Bobby Z. “It was made into a film. Unfortunately.” Even the late Paul Walker, who starred in it, called it a stinker. “No one’s seen it. It went straight to DVD.” Oliver Stone directed the film version of Savages which some, but not all, critics panned.

The experiences left the author wary. In the next adaptations he will insist on “conversations” but not backseat drive. “As a novelist you have to realise that the novel and the film have to live separate lives. They’re just different, like your kids, even if they look alike.”

Sitting alone in a room day after day conjuring the darkest human impulses takes a toll, Winslow says. “I used to joke that my next book would be about puppies that have lost a chew toy and everywhere they went people were nice and gave them things until they found the chew toy.” Sweet. But with Winslow’s name on the jacket, you’d have to wonder if something nasty awaits those puppies.

The Force is out on 20 June via William Morrow