Page Updated: 09/07/2007

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George Pelecanos - Page 3

King Suckerman A Firing Offense Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go

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British Pbk Original - Serpents Tail (1998)

King Suckerman
King Suckerman is a sizzling thriller that weaves the blaxploitation films, the drug deals, the soul music and the racial tensions that defined the '70s into a story of natural-born killers and two men who risk everything to bring them down.
Wilton Cooper is at a drive-in movie when he notices the ugly white boy walk into the projection booth. Seconds later a gun goes off, perfectly timed to coincide with the movie's noisy climax. When the boy struts coolly out, blood sprayed on the front of his cheap print shirt, Cooper knows he's found his partner.
Dimitri Karras and Marcus Clay are old friends, involved in small time business and drug dealing. But when they cross paths with Wilton Cooper, they enter a world where merciless, unpredictable violence is the only certainty.
Set in Washington, D.C. King Suckerman is an unforgettable novel of morality, friendship and unexpected consequences. It confirms Pelecanos as one of the great original talents in crime fiction.
‘This book smokes' Kirkus Reviews
‘If Curtis Mayfield were a novel this would be it’ Guardian
'Packed with Pelecanos's usual, meticulous details of pop life...comparisons to Pulp Fiction are inevitable. But Pelecanos is more than merely slick; there's heart behind the Tarantino-esque ephemera, and these details carry with them the sadness of a city teetering on the brink of its last great decline into violence and segregation' Publisher's Weekly
'...wonderfully evokes both the real and mythic 1970s in all their sleazy glory. King Suckerman is down. King Suckerman is nasty. King Suckerman is outta sight.' Peter Blauner
'George P. Pelecanos, a gritty, gutty American mystery writer published in London by small, exceedingly smart Serpent's Tail is on the very cusp of culthood. His newest, King Suckerman, makes Jim Thompson look like Barbara Cartland' Mirabella
'A taut, emotional hard-boiled thriller, with an emotional payoff made all the more poignant for answering the musical question: Do Hendrix discs belong in the rock or soul bins?' Spin

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British Pbk Original - Serpents Tail (1997)

A Firing Offense
See Review by John Baker
As the advertising director of Nutty Nathan's - 'The Miser Who Saves You Money!' - Nick Stefanos knows all the tricks of the electronics business. Blow-out sales and shady deals were his life.
When one of the stockboys disappears, it's not news: just another metalhead who went off chasing some dream of big money and easy living.
But the kid reminded Nick of himself twelve years ago: an angry punk hooked on speed metal and the fast life. So when the boy's grandfather begs Nick to try to find the kid, Nick says he'll try.
A Firing Offense demonstrates why George P Pelecanos has achieved cult status in US crime writing. As Barry Gifford puts it: 'To miss out on Pelecanos would be criminal.'
'George Pelecanos has broken with tradition in so many ways, it feels as if he has launched a category of his own. Partly, it's his convincing evocation of an unfamiliar setting, but mainly it’s the feeling that we are definitely in the present - here is your first turn-of the-century crime writer.' Charlie Gillett
'Pelecanos is a fresh, new, utterly hardboiled voice. A Firing Offense is full of virtuoso scenes of imaginative sex and substance abuse, suspenseful action, and brooding meditation on a newly lost generation. A contemporary classic.' The Washington Post
'Pelecanos puts together a slam-bang climax that contains all the requisite elements - action, tragedy, victory and random death. It's a terrific start for a quality series.' Mostly Murder

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British Pbk Original - Serpents Tail (1996)

Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go
After a night of drinking, Nick Stefanos passes out in a public park. Some time before dawn he wakes up when he hears a car door slam, and then a voice, You already been a punk. Least you can do is go out a man. Then a dull popping sound and a quiet splash.
And that’s how Stefanos gets drawn into the murder of Calvin Jeter. The investigation takes him through the roughest part of the nation’s capital and the blackest parts of the human soul.
'George Pelecanos has staked out an entirely less glamorous side of Washington in his crime novels. It’s the city made and ignored by the politicos, where people pursue grubbier dreams and take shorter, but just as fatal falls into failure. Pelecanos aims straight and truly into the abyss.' Washington Post Book World.

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