George Pelecanos at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 09/07/2007

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George Pelecanos - Page 2

British Pbk Original - Serpents Tail (2001)

Shoedog
Constantine is a drifter, a man with a lot of miles behind him and a lot more ahead and a number of jobs in between that never showed up on anyone’s books.
He hitches a ride on a bright spring morning with a little man named Polk. Heading down a country road in Polk’s hopped-up car, the two men share a few cigarettes. Later, when Constantine walks toward the big brick house, the Beat in his head, the grip of the .45 warm in his hand, the siren wailing at his back, he thinks that the whole thing started on that road, with the car stopping for his upturned thumb. He thinks that the things that happen to a man are put in motion by something just that small, just that random. He thinks about that and he laughs but keeps on walking.
A powerful mix of violence and social realism, Shoedog is contemporary noir at its finest.
`Pelecanos has always been hardboiled, but he aims straight and truly into the abyss with his noirish Shoedog’ Washington Post

Paperback - Gollancz (2000)

Shame the Devil
Washington DC, 1995. Frank Farrow is a professional criminal and colder than most - a reliable partner in crime.
But his straighfforward robbery of a restaurant has gone badly wrong. Staff were killed. His brother was shot by the police. In the getaway, Frank ran over a young boy, Jimmy Karras.
Three years pass. Dimitri Karras is a burn-out, still trying to cope with his young son’s death. Every week he visits a support group for relatives of the other victims. But talk isn't helping Dimitri - he's left feeling empty and desperate.
Meanwhile, Frank has been lying low. But now he's headed back to DC. That day at the restaurant, he lost someone too. He's determined to avenge his brother's death. And woe betide anyone who gets in his way.
Nobody brings to life the gritty reality of urban violence more effectively than George P. Pelecanos Shame the Devil is Pelecanos at his brilliant best, a novel at once poignant and brutal, savage and tender.
Praise for George P. Pelecanos
'For some time George P. Pelecanos has been the best-kept secret in crime fiction maybe all fiction. His stories have always been powerful tales of character and survival that grip the mind and the heart.' Michael Connelly
'One of the best crime writers alive' Dennis Lehane
'Pelecanos is a fresh, new, utterly hardboiled voice' Washington Post
'The coolest writer in America ' GQ

British Pbk Original - Serpents Tail (2000)

The Big Blowdown
See Review by Bob Cornwell
Washington DC, 1946. For two local young men, Pete Karras and Joey Recevo, the easiest way to find work after the war is by turning to crime - providing a little muscle for a local boss, Mr Burke, who runs a protection racket with the Mafia. The trouble with Pete Karras is that he is just too soft on his fellow immigrants, and the last thing the boss wants is for his mob to get soft. The boys have to teach Karras a painful lesson that he won't forget and he pays the full price for compromising the boss's fearsome reputation. Three years later Pete and Joey meet up once more and a final confrontation puts the meaning of friendship and honour to the ultimate test.
The first novel in the Washington Quartet which comprises King Suckerman (short-listed for the 1998 CWA Gold Dagger Award), The Sweet Forever and Shame the Devil, The Big Blowdown features Pelecanos' inimitable trademark blend of music, drink, and sense of place; tautly plotted and infused with street talk. A sharply written crime epic that evokes the mean DC streets of the 1950s – and delivers.
`This, the first novel in Pelecarnos’ Washington Quartet, fits seamlessly with the others and stands head and shoulders above the output of better known writers. Superb’ Independent on Sunday
‘The Big Blowdown is like a modern David Mamet take on one of those old George Raft-Steve McNally films where a cowardly hoodlum gets a chance at redemption and goes down in a blaze of glory. Pelecanos is too skilled a writer to deny his source material, instead, he brings it up to the level of violent art’ Dick Adler, Chicago Tribune
‘It's easy to see Big Blowdown as just another throwback to the noir/gangster tradition. Plenty of action, sex, and gore. And melodrama. But there's heart, too. Which is what lifts this novel above its genre’ David Delman, Philadelphia Inquirer
‘A fine achievement’ David Dodd, Library Journal
‘A powerful, evocative story filled with stomach-turning violence and a vision of reality that's as sharp and dangerous as ground glass... It's stark, menacing, terrifying, violent, gut-wrenching - and perfect of its kind. Vintage Pelecanos’ Emily Melton, Booklist
‘It's when the paths of the characters start to converge that the novel explodes ... What's left is a tableau of futility and heroics set in a darkly sinister section of a city in turmoil’ Ken Moore, Naples Daily News (Florida)

The Sweet Forever
It's 1986 and Washington DC is being torn apart by the cocaine trade. The Mayor is too busy chasing coke and hookers to care, and the police force is manned by corrupt rednecks like Richard 'King' Tutt. Down in the neighbourhoods, black children are shooting each other over nickel bags and the outside world just doesn't care. The only man prepared to do anything about it is Marcus Clay whose new record store - Real Right Records - is in the heart of the ghetto. Business is okay. What isn't okay is that his wife has thrown him out and his best friend, Dimitri Karras, is hitting the recreational substances way too hard.
‘One of the best crime novelists alive, George Pelecanos is an American original. The Sweet Forever-a sweeping, blistering thriller set on Washington’s mean streets against the cocaine rush and underground music explosion of 1986-is a beautiful, brilliant book. Volcanic, violent, exhilarating, it is also poignant and savagely tender, bearing a sad and knowing love for the hustlers and schemers, the innocent children and simple working men and women trying to get by in a brutal, tattered world. Gritty and flawlessly paced, this is the finest novel I’ve read this year’ Dennis Lehane
‘Pelecanos at his very best-telling a story that is urgent and moving, full of wisdom and the gritty truth of the street. You can’t put this book down or out of mind. It is one of the best novels I have read in years’ Michael Connelly
'Excellent' Guardian
'Bleak, hip and full of passion' Time Out
'The Sweet Forever is the real deal; a dirty, human slice of raw American life... Pelecanos has joined James Lee Burke and Lawrence Block at the high table of contemporary crime greats' The Times
'The whole thing is so fast paced it locks you in a half-nelson and insists you read the whole lot from beginning to end. Without blinking' Later
'Welcome to the tough and violent world of America's hottest young come writer... he just keeps getting better' Uncut
'The undisputed king of slick, hipswaying inner city literature. And The Sweet Forever - which mixes Elmore Leonard's hip dialogue with Richard (Clockers) Price's grimy ghetto heart - is just the coolest, smartest, most vital novel we've read this year' Maxim
'Living history compellingly spelled out via street life, pop sounds, shoot-outs and an awesome appetite for dope' Literary Review
'Downbeat and street, he's well worth checking’ Straight No Chaser

British Pbk Original - Serpents Tail (1998)

Nick's Trip
Nick Stefanos, having earned his PI license, quickly discovers that snapping photos of unfaithful husbands does not make for a fulfilling job. Tending bar one night at the Spot, Nick is visited by his high-school friend, Billy Goodrich. Billy's wife is gone. Nick agrees to find her. And with that first step, he sets out on a one-way path that takes him through a sewer of theft, intrigue and love.
'This is the real thing - an urban nightmare of hopelessness, greed, betrayal, and get-back, kick-ass revenge... A hell of a book' Booklist
'Snaps with authentic street talk and a switch-hitting plot.. The novel has something to say about trust and treachery' Washington Post
'The kind of book you are always hoping to find but rarely do' James Sallis
'An even more promising follow-up to Pelecanos' highly recommended first novel, A Firing Offense... He is adept at avoiding the dreary cliches used by the current crop of Hammett and Chandler wannabees' New Mystery
'Pages as suffused with the heady atmosphere of cutting-edge pop culture as anything since Nick Hornby's High Fidelity' Spin