A very solid and enjoyable effort. Many of the themes that were present in the Washington Quartet are here in this book, but it being a one-shot allowed me to just get into the story. Pelecano has a strong voice and consistent themes (relationships between black and white men, men trying to get their life back together, inner city economic failure) and I suspect that they may get a bit repetitive. However, so far this hasn't happened for me. One reason is that I agree with his themes. He's clearly an American who is proud of his country, but who is outraged by what has happened to it. He sympathizes with the underdog and the downtrodden and he has clearly seen enough of that to know that's often where the real, hardworking and proud America still exists. Another reason is that his characters, the main and the secondary ones, are cool and entertaining. The main guys are badasses in the right, subtle way and he has all kinds of rich secondary characters, like redneck meth farmers and corrupt cops.
I'm a fan of Pelecanos, but I'm going to space out reading his books. Maybe one every 6 months, maximum.
Posts
1 comment:
nice review, olman. but it's "George", not "John".
Post a Comment