City in Ruins Quiz: How Well Do You Know Don Winslow's Finale?
About This Quiz
This 20-question quiz covers the entire span of Don Winslow's City in Ruins, the concluding novel in the Danny Ryan trilogy. Questions are drawn from every part of the book, including the parallel storylines in Providence and Las Vegas. You will face multiple-choice and short-answer questions that test your recall of plot events, character motivations, thematic symbols, and the way the novel weaves its threads together.
After the questions, a full answer key explains the correct choices and provides brief context from the text.
Plot and Sequence (Questions 1–8)
Question 1 (Multiple Choice)
What causes the implosion Danny Ryan watches in the Prologue and again in Chapter One Hundred Two?
A. A planned demolition of his own Il Sogno hotel after a structural failure
B. A terrorist attack that destroys the Lavinia hotel before construction begins
C. The controlled demolition of an old casino building in the desert
D. A gas explosion inside Winegard's Riverboat casino that collapses the facade
Question 2 (Multiple Choice)
Why does Danny Ryan summon Jimmy MacNeese, Sean South, and Kevin Coombs back to Las Vegas?
A. To act as celebrity hosts for the grand opening of Il Sogno
B. To testify before the Gaming Control Board about Danny's past
C. To help protect his family after learning Allie Licata and his crew are in town
D. To intimidate Abe Stern into buying more Tara Group stock
Question 3 (Short Answer)
What happens at the charity Lamborghini auction that deepens the feud between Danny and Vern Winegard?
Question 4 (Multiple Choice)
How does prosecutor Marie Bouchard first learn that Peter Moretti Jr. has been arrested in Pompano Beach, Florida?
A. A call from Pasco Ferri, who wants to arrange a plea deal
B. A tip from a card counter Connelly was bribing at the Shores
C. A news report about a manhunt for a decorated Marine
D. Standard law-enforcement notification after the Florida arrest
Question 5 (Multiple Choice)
Why does Chris Palumbo decide to return to Rhode Island?
A. He learns his wife Cathy has remarried and he wants her back
B. Johnny Marks finds him in Nebraska and delivers a threat that forces him to leave
C. The FBI offers him witness protection in exchange for testimony against Giglione
D. Laura kicks him out of the farm after discovering his real identity
Question 6 (Short Answer)
What method does Ron Fahey use to obtain the leverage Danny needs against Cammy Cooper at the license hearing?
Question 7 (Multiple Choice)
After the gunfight in the chop shop, how does Danny finally trap Licata?
A. He shoots out the overhead lights and tackles him in the dark
B. He releases a jack holding up a car, which crashes down on Licata’s legs
C. He locks the garage door and sets the building on fire with Licata inside
D. He uses a burner phone to call in a false police report and ambushes Licata outside
Question 8 (Short Answer)
What does the jury decide in Peter Moretti Jr.’s double-murder trial, and what does Peter do immediately after the verdict is read?
Character Motivation (Questions 9–13)
Question 9 (Multiple Choice)
Why does Eden Landau refuse to attend Ian’s birthday party when Danny invites her?
A. She dislikes Madeleine and refuses to be in the same room with her
B. She is secretly working with the FBI and cannot be seen socially with Danny
C. She values her privacy and does not want to be introduced into Ian’s life yet
D. She has a scheduled client appointment at the exact hour of the party
Question 10 (Multiple Choice)
What is Vern Winegard’s deepest unspoken reason for fixating on Danny Ryan after the Lavinia sale?
A. He believes Danny stole his patented cargo-door circuit design years ago
B. He fears Danny will reveal his payments to Allie Licata and destroy his license
C. A rumor that Danny mocked his facial appearance revives decades-old body-image shame
D. He is jealous that Danny’s son Ian is healthy while his own son Bryce is sickly from birth
Question 11 (Short Answer)
Why does Marie Bouchard, after the mistrial, decide against retrying Peter Moretti Jr. for the murder of Celia Moretti, and what alternative does she offer?
Question 12 (Multiple Choice)
When Chris Palumbo confronts John Giglione in the kitchen, what drives him to take such a violent, personal revenge instead of letting the big families handle it?
A. Giglione had stolen the heroin Chris was transporting and blamed him for the loss
B. Giglione attempted to sleep with Cathy, and Chris insists on dealing with him personally
C. Giglione murdered Chris’s father years earlier in a mob takeover in Boston
D. Giglione told Laura about Chris’s true identity, forcing him out of Nebraska
Question 13 (Short Answer)
Why does Abe Stern, after refusing to invest, change his mind and decide to buy Tara Group stock during his midnight meeting with Danny by the lake?
Theme and Symbol (Questions 14–17)
Question 14 (Multiple Choice)
The Prologue and Chapter One Hundred Two frame the novel with an image of a building imploding. What does Danny understand implosion to represent?
A. The economic collapse of the Las Vegas Strip in the early 2000s
B. The physical decay of old casinos and the need for new construction
C. The cancer, depression, and moral rot that destroy a person from the inside
D. A literal demolition technique he learned from mob associates in Providence
Question 15 (Multiple Choice)
The Virgil epigraph at the start of the novel asks why the Trojans could not die on the plains of Troy or stay defeated. How does this classical allusion connect to Danny’s story?
A. Danny, like Aeneas, sails from the East Coast to found a new city in the West
B. Both Danny and the Trojans discover that survival prolongs endless cycles of warfare instead of providing closure
C. The quote references a physical wall that mirrors the security perimeter of Il Sogno
D. It signals that Danny will die in the final chapter, fulfilling the Trojan pattern of sacrifice
Question 16 (Short Answer)
Danny repeatedly describes his leg injury and cane as a reminder of "collapse." Besides the physical wound, what internal collapses does the cane reference?
Question 17 (Multiple Choice)
What does the Red Sox baseball game Ian watches with Uncle Ned symbolize in the chapter?
A. The comfort of Las Vegas as a new home that replaced the family's New England roots
B. The inevitability of failure and the trilogy’s broader fatalism, as a late Red Sox lead evaporates
C. Ian’s secret ambition to become a professional baseball player instead of joining Danny’s business
D. A coded message from Jimmy Mac that Licata’s crew has been spotted near the house
Synthesis Questions (Questions 18–20)
Question 18 (Short Answer)
The novel intercuts two vengeance storylines: Danny’s war with Licata in Las Vegas and Chris Palumbo’s return to Providence. How does Chris’s violent reclamation of his family parallel or contrast with Danny’s fight to protect his?
Question 19 (Multiple Choice)
By the end of the novel, both Danny and Vern have lost people they love. Which statement best captures the symmetry in their tragedies?
A. Both men lose their wives to cancer, deepening their bitterness toward each other
B. Vern loses his son Bryce, and Danny loses his surrogate son Josh Stern, each death linked to the cycle of mob violence
C. Both men are shot and permanently disabled in separate attacks ordered by the same Detroit crew
D. Vern loses his hotel empire, and Danny loses his gaming license, leaving them equally ruined
Question 20 (Short Answer)
The novel ends with an epilogue titled “Home” set in Rhode Island in 2023, quoting Virgil’s question, “What is left at the last?” Based on your reading of the entire story, what has Danny lost by the novel’s close, and what, if anything, might he still possess?
Answer Key
Answer 1: C – The controlled demolition of an old casino building in the desert. The Prologue and Chapter One Hundred Two bookend the novel with Danny watching the same implosion, using it as a metaphor for internal collapse. Distractors are invented plot events that never occur.
Answer 2: C – To help protect his family after learning Allie Licata and his crew are in town. Danny calls Jimmy, Sean, and Kevin when he realizes Licata has arrived in Las Vegas as a threat. No testimony, celebrity event, or Stern intimidation takes place.
Answer 3: Danny wins the Lamborghini with a $500,000 bid and then tries to give the car to Vern as a peace offering. Vern drops the keys and rebuffs him, and Madeleine later tells Danny the gesture made him look guilty rather than gracious.
Answer 4: D – Standard law-enforcement notification after the Florida arrest. The outline notes that Marie Bouchard learns of Peter Moretti Jr.’s arrest in Pompano Beach through normal prosecutorial channels. No tip, call from Pasco, or news report drives her initial knowledge.
Answer 5: B – Johnny Marks finds him in Nebraska and delivers a threat that forces him to leave. Marks, working for Pasco, tells Chris that Providence knows where he is and that he must leave. Laura does not kick him out, and the FBI protection option does not arise.
Answer 6: Fahey tails Coop Cooper to a Utah cabin and photographs him in a secret gay relationship. The photos give Danny leverage because Cammy Cooper has built a political brand on anti-gay-rights activism. Danny uses the evidence to force Cammy to lead the board to exonerate him.
Answer 7: B – He releases a jack holding up a car, which crashes down on Licata’s legs. The outline describes Danny kicking out the jack and the car trapping Licata. No overhead lights, locked-door fire, or false police report occurs.
Answer 8: The jury finds Peter Moretti Jr. not guilty of Vincent Calfo’s murder but deadlocks on the murder of his mother Celia. Immediately afterward, Peter shouts in open court that he killed his mother intentionally, turning the trial on its head.
Answer 9: C – She values her privacy and does not want to be introduced into Ian’s life yet. Eden explicitly cites her need for privacy and the “slippery slope” toward a serious relationship as reasons to decline. A patient schedule is mentioned elsewhere but is not the primary reason.
Answer 10: C – A rumor that Danny mocked his facial appearance revives decades-old body-image shame. Connelly spreads a false rumor that Danny cruelly mocked Vern’s face, tapping into high-school trauma. The cargo-door patent, license fears, and Bryce’s health are not the core trigger.
Answer 11: Marie decides against retrying Peter Jr., recalling the biblical verse James 2:13 (“Mercy triumphs over judgment”). She offers an insanity plea that requires a locked facility and a ten-year minimum sentence, effectively choosing mercy over a second trial.
Answer 12: B – Giglione attempted to sleep with Cathy, and Chris insists on dealing with him personally. Chris has already killed the other rival bosses but saves Giglione for himself because of the personal insult to his wife. The heroin, father’s murder, and Nebraska revelation are not the motivation.
Answer 13: Abe tells Danny the story of his brothers Julius and Nathan, who were tortured and murdered by mob capo Allie Licata. When Abe reveals that Vern Winegard still pays Licata points, he sees Danny as an ally against Licata. Danny’s dignified acceptance of the earlier refusal also earns Abe’s respect.
Answer 14: C – The cancer, depression, and moral rot that destroy a person from the inside. Danny explicitly thinks, “The cancer that killed his wife, the depression that destroyed his love, the moral rot that took his soul. All implosion, all from the inside.” The other options misrepresent the metaphor.
Answer 15: B – Both Danny and the Trojans discover that survival prolongs endless cycles of warfare instead of providing closure. The epigraph laments surviving the fall of Troy only to face endless war in Latium, mirroring Danny’s experience after surviving Providence. No westward founding, physical wall, or final-chapter death is indicated.
Answer 16: The cane references the collapse of Danny’s body from past violence, but also the internal collapses he lists: the cancer that killed his wife Terri, the depression that destroyed Diane Carson, and the moral rot that consumed his own soul.
Answer 17: B – The inevitability of failure and the trilogy’s broader fatalism, as a late Red Sox lead evaporates. The outline states the baseball scene uses the game’s collapse to mirror the trilogy’s larger fatalism. No relocation, baseball ambition, or coded message appears in the text.
Answer 18: Chris returns to Rhode Island and violently reclaims his position by killing Giglione and other mob rivals, then reconciles with his wife Cathy and son Jake. Danny, by contrast, fights to protect his family but loses Josh, Kevin, Sean, and ultimately his Las Vegas empire; the epilogue implies he returns to Rhode Island in ruins. Chris’s storyline ends with a restored domestic life, while Danny’s ends with survival amid loss, offering mirrored but reversed outcomes: Chris regains his family through violence, while Danny’s violence costs him almost everything.
Answer 19: B – Vern loses his son Bryce, and Danny loses his surrogate son Josh Stern, each death linked to the cycle of mob violence. Bryce dies in a car crash while Licata targets Danny’s circle, and Josh is murdered (staged as a suicide) by Licata’s crew. Neither man’s wife dies of cancer during the novel, neither is shot and disabled, and neither loses his entire empire.
Answer 20: Danny has lost his wife Terri to cancer, his lover Diane to suicide, his friends Kevin and Sean to Licata’s brutal retaliation, Josh Stern to Licata’s staged murder, his mentor Ned Egan to a heart attack after defending Ian, and his Las Vegas empire to the fallout of the war. The epilogue’s Rhode Island setting suggests he may have retained his son Ian, a thread of homecoming, and perhaps the bare fact of survival—though the Virgil quote implies that what remains is as much a question as an answer.