Down By The River Where the Dead Men Go (Old Editi (Mask Noir) [Paperback]

George P. Pelecanos (Author)

Book Description

Series: Mask Noir | Publication Date: September 1996

After a night of drinking, Nick Stefanos passes out in a public park. Some time before dawn he wakes up in time to hear a murder. He is drawn into investigate. This takes him through the roughest part of the nation's capital and the blackest parts of the human soul.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Welcome to the unlit bleakness of grunge crime fiction. Nick Stefanos (Nick's Trip) inhabits D.C.'s most squalid streets, tending bar, boozing for free, wasting his 30s and dating a girl with a taste for the sauce to rival his. One night, out on a bender and nearly passed out, he hears a murder being committed and decides to find the killers (how a guy this hammered can later remember so much is cheerfully glossed over). Nick gets himself an alarmingly straight-arrow partner and dives headlong into the underbelly of the porn trade. Two young black men have been dealing drugs and selling their bodies; one is dead, and the other is missing. Stefanos only pauses to drink, listen to music by bands with whom only the hippest readers will be familiar and have a few bouts of desperate sex. Although his innumerable descriptions of bars and boozing might leave some bored (or queasy), Pelecanos joins company with James Ellroy, Andrew Vachss and Jack O' Connell in extending the noirest tones of crime fiction. Here, he unleashes a lacerating view of urban angst and degradation.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Give bartender Nick Stefanos a bottle of booze, a pack of smokes, and some good lovin', and he's a happy man. Nick lives for the first and last drinks of the day and all the drinks between, but once in a while, he comes out of his alcoholic fog and does some detecting work. After a stupor-inducing night with a bottle of Jack Daniels, Stefanos comes to on the bank of the Anacostia River and hears a murder being committed just yards away. The experience shakes him out of his funk and draws him into a mysterious case with roots deep in the D.C. ghetto. Stefanos teams up with one Jack LaDuke to find the murderers, but even with a partner, he's got more than he can handle. Pelecanos writes the ultimate in hard-boiled, hardcore fiction, with evil characters, graphic violence, and rough language. This is a powerful, shocking foray into an uncompromising, bleak world of depravity and decadence, a book that will stick with the reader long after the awful conclusion. Emily Melton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 234 pages
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail (September 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852425296
• ISBN-13: 978-1852425296
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,604,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

George P. Pelecanos was born in Washington, DC in 1957. His first novel was published in 1992 and alongside his consequential success as an author, he has also worked as producer, writer and story editor for the acclaimed and award-winning US crime series, The Wire. His writing for the show earned him an Emmy nomination.

He is the author of fifteen crime novels set in and around Washington, DC. The Big Blowdown was the recipient of the International Crime Novel of the Year award in both Germany and Japan; King Suckerman was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award in the UK. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire and the collections Unusual Suspects and Best American Mystery Stories of 1997. He is an award-winning journalist and pop-culture essayist who has written for the Washington Post.

Pelecanos can also claim credit for involvement in the production of several feature films. Most recently, as a screenwriter for film, he has written an adaptation of King Suckerman for Dimension Films, and was co-writer on the Paid in Full.

His novel Right as Rain is currently in development with director Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential, Wonder Boys) and Warner Brothers. He is a writer on the upcoming World War II miniseries The Pacific, to be produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and HBO. Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and three children. He is at work on his next novel.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very entertaining book, but not one of Pelecanos' best, December 31, 2002

By 

brazos49 "brazos49" (Sugar Land, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (A Five Star Title) (Paperback)

I've now read all of George Pelecanos' novels and I loved them all, including this one. If there's a better crime thriller author out there, I haven't found them. Gritty seems to be the operative word in describing his work and this story is no exception. His stories are all set in Washington D.C., with lots of great word pictures of places there and lots of music references. It's an outstanding formula and Pelecanos works it very, very well.

Having said all the preceding, I will say that I'd rate this as clearly one of his lesser works. If you haven't read the other books with Stefanos et al, I don't believe this book really gives you all the character development you'd like from a stand alone novel. This book is fairly short and maybe that's why I felt that the characters and the story were a little short changed relative to other books by the author.

To sum it up, definitely read Pelecanos and you'll almost surely want to read this book and all his work, but don't select this as the first of his books - go with The Big Blowdown, A Firing Offense or Nick's Trip.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An unusually strong Chandlerian novel..., February 21, 2001

By 

Dan Seitz "cinnatusc" (Somerville, MA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (A Five Star Title) (Paperback)

Nick Stefanos isn't the nicest guy in the world, but he tries to be a decent person, and when something goes wrong, he feels guilty. This is the third novel in the series, and we meet Nick as a bartender.

To give you an idea of the nature of Stefanos, this novel opens with him going on a pretty bad drunk, passing out by a river, and hearing the murder of a young black man. He feels guilt, just for being there.

This novel's strengths lie largely in the central character and the rendering of modern-day, low-rent Washington D.C. I grew up in the area, and I have to say, Pelecanos nails it on the head. Stefanos is also a very sad character which you feel for.

The plot is pretty well-done; you can't figure out what's going on on page ten, you actually have to read the book. Still, Vachss has been in this territory, and his Burke is a bit stronger and more world-weary than Stefanos. However, this is a pretty good detective novel that I enjoyed a great deal. Worth reading, a fun work.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic of the genre, November 15, 2000

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (A Five Star Title) (Paperback)

Hardboiled P.I. fiction doesn't get much better than this. Pelacanos's hero, P.I. and bartender Nick Stefanos, is an alcoholic which is dramatically demonstrated by his harrowing bender as the book opens. In his stupor he sort of, kind of, witnesses a murder and becomes obsessed about solving it. Though not obssessed enough to quit drinking. Along the way, he hooks up with fellow P.I. Jack LaDuke, who has a mess of psychological problems of his own. The two form an unlikely pair, and as Pelecanos's riventing story unfolds, you know the ending will not be pretty.

This was my first book in this series, and I definately plan to read more. Fans of Andrew Vachss's Burke series, in particular, should eat this stuff up.