George P. Pelecanos

The first in the excellent Strange and Quinn series from 'The coolest writer in America' GQ. Derek Strange and Terry Quinn are ex-cops turned private detectives in Washington, DC. Hired to investigate the death of an off-duty black police officer at the hands of a white policeman, Strange and Quinn are faced with the institutionalised racism of the nation's most poorly trained and dangerous police force. As the two private detectives confront the degradation of the city's flourishing drug trade, they find themselves up against some of the most implacable, dead-eyed killers ever to grace the pages of a novel. In RIGHT AS RAIN George Pelecanos introduces a memorable pair of characters into the grittily real Washington DC landscape which has led to him being acclaimed as 'a great writer' THE TIMES

Right as Rain

a novel

The cut

Marcus Clay's record store is at the epicenter of the drug trade in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1980s. Dimitri Karras, his best friend and store manager, is rapidly developing a nasty drug habit. But things get worse when the two men witness the theft of the bag of a local drug lord who is willing to destroy the entire neighborhood to get it back. "A detailed and emotionally powerful crime novel."--"Chicago Tribune."

A Novel

The Sweet Forever

The book that introduces Nick Stefanos. The Pelecanos market continues to grow.

A Firing Offense

Washington DC, 1946. For two local young men, Pete Karras and Joey Recevo, the easiest way to find work after the war is by providing a little muscle for a local boss 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. 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 Big Blowdown is the first novel in Pelecanos's acclaimed ?Washington Quartet'.

The Big Blowdown

The haunting story of three cops--one good, one bad, one broken--and the murder that reunites them in a showdown decades in the making.

The Night Gardener

Thirty-five years after a devastating accident that irrevocably shapes the lives of six people, a pair of redemption-seeking survivors reaches out to one another in an effort that is compromised by a fellow survivor's release from prison and the changing neighborhoods of modern Washington, D.C.

The Turnaround

As the advertising director of Nutty Nathan's, 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 find the kid, Nick says he'll try. A Firing Offense, Nick Stefanos' debut, shows why, as Barry Gifford puts it, "To miss out on Pelecanos would be criminal."

Christopher Flynn is trying to get it right. After years of trouble and rebellion that enraged his father and nearly cost him his life, he has a steady job in his father's company, he's seriously dating a woman he respects, and, aside from the distrust that lingers in his father's eyes, his mistakes are firmly in the past. One day on the job, Chris and his partner come across a temptation almost too big to resist. Chris does the right thing, but old habits and instincts rise to the surface, threatening this new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With his father and his most trusted friends, he takes one last chance to blast past the demons trying to pull him back. Like Richard Price or William Kennedy, Pelecanos pushes his characters to the extremes, their redemption that much sweeter because it is so hard fought. Pelecanos has long been celebrated for his unerring ability to portray the conflicts men feel as they search and struggle for power and love in a world that is often harsh and unforgiving but can ultimately be filled with beauty.

The Way Home

King suckerman

A Washington, D.C., crime lord fights for his life in court while P.I. Derek Strange finds a woman whose testimony could mean death or freedom for the crime lord.

Soul Circus

Hoping to start over after serving eight years in prison, Lorenzo Brown returns to the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of his youth to take a job as a Humane Society officer but finds challenges from a local drug boss and former acquaintances who would draw him back into his old world. 75,000 first printing.

Drama City

On the heels of the stunning success of the award-winning Brooklyn Noir, here comes the newest volume in this groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Mystery sensation George Pelecanos authors the lead story and edits this innovative collection of short stories detailing the seedy underside of the USA's Capitol. Pimps, whores, gangsters and con-men run rampant in a side of the city most never see.

D.C. Noir

A fatal shooting that strikes too close to home leaves PI Derek Strange determined to find the killer - whatever the cost. From one of the award-winning writers of THE WIRE. Set in darkest, downtown Washington, Hell to Pay begins with Quinn and Strange dealing with the usual detritus of the world's most violent city - a bent cop and a missing teenage-girl-turned-hooker - but then a senseless death on a sunny afternoon shakes even Derek Strange's existence. A victim shot down by bullets meant for another; a tragic accident that strikes just too close to home. Strange's grief is all-consuming and he swears to track down and destroy the killers - ghetto style. But as he throws himself deeper and deeper into the hunt, he has to ask questions of himself and his world that he would rather not.

Hell to Pay

Nick's Trip

Il guardiano del buio

Sweet Forever

"Washington, D.C., 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. His former partner, Frank "Hound Dog" Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn's turf, where a local drug addict's been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment. Soon both men are on the trail of a ruthless killer: Red Fury, so called for his looks and the car his girlfriend drives, but a name that fits his personality all too well. Red Fury doesn't have a retirement plan, as Vaughn points out - he doesn't care who he has to cross, or kill, to get what he wants. As the violence escalates and the stakes get higher, Strange and Vaughn know the only way to catch their man is to do it their own way. Rich with details of place and time - the cars, the music, the clothes - and fueled by non-stop action, this is Pelecanos writing in the hard-boiled noir style that won him his earliest fans and placed him firmly in the ranks of the top crime writers in America"--

What it was

Hired to find a fourteen-year-old girl who has run away from home and started working as a prostitute, Derek Strange and Terry Quinn are forced to confront a dangerous adversary in pimp Worldwide Wilson.

George P. Pelecanos

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