From Publishers Weekly
After several well-received Nick Stefanos crime novels, (A Firing Offense; Nick's Trip; Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go), Pelecanos goes for broke with a gangster epic that chronicles 25 turbulent years of immigrant life in post-WWII Washington, D.C. He rises above the in-built predictability of the material to unleash a charged page-turner liberally doused with sex, death and irony. Pete Karras might be a confirmed skirt-chaser, but he's way too soft on the guys he's being paid to shake down. As a penalty for shirking his duty, he gets his legs broken and ends up limping through the streets he loves, working the counter of a diner owned by Nick Stefanos (the father, presumably, of the Nick who stars in Pelecanos's earlier books). When a kid shows up looking for a lost sister who's addicted to heroin and whoring to support her habit, Pete finds himself a cause. Whores, especially well-stacked ones, are being slit open in the city, and Karras's childhood pal, Jimmy Boyle, now a beat cop, is anxious for a collar. Joey Recevo, who grew up on the streets with Karras and Boyle, is still a shakedown artist, and now his next target is Nick's place. There isn't much in the plot that truthfully surprises, but the tale of these three friends and how their loyalties are tested is feverishly alive. Pelecanos lovingly recreates old Washington with small details about soft-drink brands, finned cars and cherished smokes. The ending is a haze of gunsmoke that drifts away to leave a mixed tableau of heroism and futility. With stylistic panache and forceful conviction, Pelecanos delivers a darkly powerful story of the American city.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Set in Washington, D.C., from the 1930s to the 1950s, Pelecanos's (Shoedog, St. Martin's, 1994) latest novel traces a group of boyhood friends as they make their way in the richly detailed Greek and Italian neighborhoods of the city. Peter Karras, a Greek, and his friend Joe Recevo, an Italian, grow up together, serve separately in World War II, and reunite for a time after the war as Joe becomes involved in organized crime in the city. Peter cannot stomach the practice of shaking down immigrants for loan vigorish and is brutally cast out by the gangsters, as Joe stands by. The two friends will inevitably cross paths again. Pelecanos's plotting is superb, as is his use of dialog and sense of place. Innumerable details that are brought in to the story turn out to be essential plot elements further down the line, so that the entire book seems to have been conceived as a unified thought. A fine achievement; recommended for all fiction collections.?David Dodd, Univ. of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
