With some laughs, some stories, some tears, Don Winslow begins what he calls his final book tour

Don Winslow, embarking on what he calls his final book tour, had a feeling he might not keep it together

“It’s a little bit of a bittersweet evening for me,” he said Monday, speaking before some 40 admirers at The Mysterious Bookshop in downtown Manhattan, one of the city’s last stores dedicated entirely to crime narratives. “I am obviously much too macho to shed a tear or anything like that — tough guy crime writer. But I might.”

Winslow, 70, has announced that his new novel, “City in Ruins,” will be his last. He’s not burned out or ill or out of ideas. He has other priorities — one priority: the defeat of Donald Trump, whom the author regularly attacks through statements and videos on social media.

“What I fear very much is happening in this country,” he says of the possibility Trump will return to the White House. “I need a more immediate sort of address than is available in a novel.”

On Monday, he sounded very much like an active author, explaining his typical writing day — up at 4:45 a.m., a pot of coffee, a round of newspapers, then hours of work. But he also was thinking about the past and how to say goodbye, remembering all the jobs he took on, from private investigator to a tour guide in Kenya, and the many publishers who turned him down.

The Mysterious Bookshop is a special stop along the way. He first read there in the early 1990s, when he was promoting his debut novel, “A Cool Breeze on the Underground,” and has returned many times. During the reading, he called out thanks to the store’s owner, Otto Penzler.

“I think we're the ones thanking you for being here,” Penzler responded.

It happened. Winslow chokes up, turns away.

“I can’t look at Otto,” he says as he again faces the audience.

Winslow feels, for now,