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Title: Right As Rain by George P. Pelecanos, Richard Allen ISBN: 1-58788-964-1 Publisher: Brilliance Audio Pub. Date: December, 2002 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 4 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.28 (36 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Dark, Gritty, Good!
Comment: Right as Rain is gritty social realism at its best. Pelecanos works against the straight-jacket of the detective genre to bring us a novel that is equal parts detective novel, social commentary, and roller coast ride entertainment. In the end, it's easiest just to call Right as Rain a detective novel, but it could just as well fit on the literary or mainstream book shelf inside a bookstore. It is that good!
One honest word of caution to anyone who may be reading this review trying to make up her mind whether or not to buy or read Right as Rain -- it is a very "male" novel. It is macho. It is violent and gritty in its depiction of drugs and drug use, and women take subordinate roles to men. If you want great women characters go read Jane Austen, if you want a shotgun and Sharmba Mitchell, Pelecanos is your man.
Right as Rain is the story of private detective Derek Strange and former cop Terry Quinn's first meeting and first work together. Quinn has been forced into retirement for shooting and killing a plain-clothed black cop (Chris Wilson) in a morally compromised situation, and the story is primarily about his ability to redeem himself. The race issue is described in multi-textured layers where honesty proves the better line to walk than PC social convention.
Both Quinn and Strange have mature issues to work through. For Strange, he must decide how much to commit to a role as father and husband, while working the thankless streets of D.C. And at the center of their work is the lost junkie sister (Sondra Wilson) of the cop Quinn killed. She may hold the answers to why Wilson was going ballistic on a slimeball kid named Ricky Kane, which drew Quinn into pulling his gun in the first place.
All of this makes Right as Rain sound like a heavily weighted character novel, and while the characters are heavy the novel itself never gets weighted down. Pelecanos's pacing is about as good as any writer writing today, regardless of genre. You get the sense that he just writes each chapter on the fly, and when done well this makes for the best kind of novel -- one with a pulse, man. One with a very strong pulse.
I highly recommend Right as Rain to ...anyone who likes really good fiction. I'd also suggest checking out "Shame the Devil," a novel who's opening twenty-five pages may be the best opening twenty-five pages I've ever read. Pelecanos doesn't mince words. When he gets into writing a novel, it's the fiction equivalent of Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. The fight is for truth, justice and moral redemption, and the result is an undisputed knockout!
Stacey...
Rating: 5
Summary: More from the Mean Streets of DC
Comment: Oddly, no one from DC has thrown in their 2 cents on the latest Pelecanos book, so I guess I'll give it a shot. I've lived in DC for 20 years, my family is from here, and Pelecanos is only the second author I've come across who writes about the DC that I know and recognize (the other Edward Jones, check out his story collection "Lost in the City" if you can find it). In this new book, he steps away from his established characters Nick Stefanos and Dmitri Karras, and launches a new duo, black, middle-aged PI Derek Strange, and younger, white ex-cop Terry Quinn. Through them, and the story of Chris Wilson, an off-duty black cop shot by Quinn, Pelecanos displays the racial awkwardness and tension that pervades Washington, D.C. The central message of the book is that everyone, regardless of race, carries preconceptions with them about other groups. That doesn't make them racist-that term is reserved for those who carry hatred in their hearts.
Strange is hired to investigate the shooting of her son, Chris Wilson, leading him to Quinn, who works in a little used bookstore in Silver Spring (Like all the locations in the book, the store really exists, it's a few blocks from my office and I sometimes swing by on my lunch break). The two men fall into an uneasy partnership as this discover more about he events that led to Quinn's killing of Wilson. They make an engagingly effective odd couple as they verbally spar with one another about race, underneath their respective flaws, they're good men. At the same time, both men are struggling to make relationships work, Strange with his divorcee secretary, and Quinn with a Latina student/waitress. As with most of Pelecanos's men, they often make selfish or simply clumsy moves in looking for love. And like most of those same guys, they have well-defined tastes in music, cars, movies, and books.
Following the tone of Pelecanos's previous work, what is gradually revealed is a sordid tale of drugs and corruption, with some powerful drug pushers, and a few violent rednecks. All this unfolds in a world instantly recognizable to Washington natives, where drug dealers work in the open, neighborhoods revolve around local restaurants, and corruption has spread to even the upscale oases (the well-known high-end restaurant Red Sage being one example). As we have come to expect from Pelecanos, everything comes together in a cinematic violent climax offering some attempt at justice. If you've read and enjoyed previous books of his, you're likely to enjoy this one as well. It's got two great new characters, and is a bit more explicit in examining racism, but is otherwise very much in keeping with his previous work.
Rating: 5
Summary: Best Modern Crime Noir Writer (And A Springsteen fan!!!!)
Comment: I read five of Pelecanos' books in a row, and finally had to stop myself- not because I was burning myself out on them, but because they're simply that good and I want to savor them. Unfortunately, some of his earlier Nick Stefanos and Dimitri Karras books are hard to find and exist only in overpriced paperback editions. Knowing that, I started with the Derek Strange books, since they're in print and easy to find at bookstores and libraries. Pelecanos is frequently compared to Micahel Connelly and Dennis Lehane, but I think he's a lot better. Given that those two are fantastic writers, that's quite a compliment- sort of like saying that The Beatles are better than The Stones and The Who...
Derek Strange is one of the more realistic characters I've met in any genere. He's a flawed but basically decent man struggling with the social issues that confront him in his personal and professional life. Pelecanos conveys a social conscience without becoming preachy, and Strange is the perfect vehicle for this. His settings are not the tired, overused streets of NYC or Los Angeles, but instead the familiar but less literary-travelled areas surroudning Washington DC. His DC is not the political Beltway, but rather the complex urban area that offers the tremendous positivies and the horrific negatives of any major city. In addition to a remarkably sympathetic and detailed protagonist, Pelecanos creates some truly repulsive bad guys- thoroughly evil, but utterly impossible to turn away from.
Some reviews criticize Pelecanos for his overuse of musical references. I disagree- I think that the constant reference to the music being listened to by the character sets the mood and tone as much as do the descritions of place. I'm not familiar with everything he mentions, but it certainly makes me want to go seek out each song and artist he so casually namedrops. Plus, he's a Springsteen fan, so that ups his credibilty a thousandfold in my book!!!!
So this review seems to be as much about Pelecanos' overall works as about "Right As Rain". It's a fine mystery/urban crime novel with no shortage of violence and drug references, but they are never gratuitous and never portrayed without some moral and social context. Pelecanos clearly weighs heavily the social issues that confront our culture, and he does a fine job of expressing these through his characters. I look forward to more stories with Derek Strange, Terry Quinn and the rest of the profound people that populate Pelecanos' only-slightly fictional world.
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Title: Hell to Pay by George P. Pelecanos, George Pelecanos ISBN: 0446611328 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Soul Circus by George P. Pelecanos ISBN: 0316608432 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Shame the Devil by George P. Pelecanos ISBN: 0440236355 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 06 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Sweet Forever by George P. Pelecanos ISBN: 044023493X Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 10 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Big Blowdown by George P. Pelecanos ISBN: 0312242913 Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur Pub. Date: 24 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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