Customer Reviews

Hell to Pay

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, the salt and pepper detective team first introduced in "Right as Rain" (2000), are back in another stellar mystery from one of the very best writers of contemporary fiction. Forget about the milquetoast scribblers who pop up on Oprah; authors like Pelecanos are where the quality really is.

In the hands of a less-skilled writer, this unlikely duo would seem forced and false, an interracial pair thrown together because it's contemporary and PC. Pelecanos couldn't care less about that, though. Strange and Quinn are together because it works; their skills and personalities not only complement each other, their pairing allows them to access both sides of D.C.'s color divide. Even more than that, these two very different men have gradually, reluctantly formed a real friendship.

Pelecanos does so many things well in his books. The action, the suspense, the dialogue are all breathtakingly sharp. He even provides the soundtrack to his story, music selected to demonstrate his characters moods and attitudes.

It's amazing to me that Pelecanos isn't a bigger name in the mystery field than he is. Maybe his work is too dark or too gritty for the mainstream audience. It certainly is not the result of a lack of quality. You will find few better than him.

Reviewed by David Montgomery, MysteryInkOnline.com

Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, who were introduced to us in Right As Rain, return for a second gruelling case that once again takes them (and us) through the sleazy, dangerous backstreets of Washington DC.

Strange is a middle aged black private investigator who is essentially a good man who has to deal with all manner of low-lifes, and consequently is forced to do things that weigh heavily on his mind. Hell To Pay focuses on Strange's devotion to the black youth living in the projects of Washington. He is determined to give them every possible chance to make something of themselves by building self-esteem and confidence.

Furthering the youth theme and, in a way, counterbalancing all his good work, are the two cases that Strange and Quinn work on throughout the book. The first involves a fourteen year old prostitute and their attempts to get her off the streets and back home to her family. The second is the investigation of the murder of a child. This becomes a much more emotional case that turns personal, with Strange walking a moral tightrope.

Once again, Pelecanos has delivered a powerful story that graphically portrays the mean streets and dangerous characters of modern day society. Although relentlessly illustrating the everyday tragedy surrounding us all, there is at least an underlying tone of hope.

P.I. Derek strange is back with Janine and her son Lionel as well as Terry Quinn from "Right As Rain" who is helping him coach Pee Wee football and doing some investigating on the side. It opens with bad guy Garfield "Death" Potter at a pit bull fight (he's so bad he later shoots the losing dog) browbeating a guy to tell him where to find Lorenze Wilder who owes him $100. Strange appears when he meets Susan Tracy and Karen Bagley, two ex-cops now running a detective agency that finds runaways and helps hookers.

Tracy and Bagley hire Quinn to track down a 14-year-old runaway who is controlled by pimp Worldwide Wilson. Terry screws up the snatch, Susan bails him out and they become a hot item in the aftermath.

On a parallel story line, Potter and co. kill Lorenze and his nephew Joe on their way home from Pee Wee football practice. Lorenze's sister has been raising Joe on her own, never telling him who his father is. He's a force that will figure into the rest of the story.

Though 2/3 of D.C. homicides go unsolved, ther are enough clues and enough interest to get Joe Wilder's killers. Strange gets to Potter before the cops do. At the same time Terry is going after Worldwide who beat up Stella the working girl who tipped them to the runaway.

The two parallel showdowns are a stretch, but Pelecanos has a great way of letting justice be done. In the end the reader knows what happened to whom and is still left to speculate how Pelecanos expects the criminal justic system to clean things up.

Enough loose ends for a sequel? I hope so! Pelecanos never disappoints.

I picked this book up because I am a big fan of The Wire, a TV series that Pelecanos serves as a head writer for. I was hoping for a great crime novel with overlapping plotlines, memorable characters and thought-provoking themes like the TV series. Instead I got a boring, disjointed novel full of tripe dialogue, gratuitous refrences to music that the author probably cribbed off the Billboard top 100, boring moralizing, and lousy sex scenes.
His hereos and villians are one dimensional in the extreme and his use of slang is at-times ludicrously incorrect. As an example I'll focus on the mecahnics of the drug trade described in the novel. The main villian, Garfield 'Death' Potter, is a big time 'hydro' dealer, but doesn't appear to have any sort of hydroponic marijuana operation set up (there's a reason it's called 'hydro'), relies on a midget street dealer to distribute dimes and nicks, and spends most of his time in the novel stealing cars and shooting recalitrant customers (and since when can you find an 'oz' for $100 on the east coast?). What kind of drug dealer is that? A bad one that would definitely not be running the streets of DC. If this were real life, as Pelecanos would obviously like to have the reader believe, Potter would barely be making his money back or in debt to dealers that actually knew what they were doing. I felt like I was reading an after-school special from the early-90s.
Worse, I think Pelecanos thinks he is saying something important with this book, and he constantly tries to remind readers that young people have no respect for life because they listen to rap music instead of classic soul and "blues-metal." The novel is trite in the extreme. Stick to The Wire.

There are very few authors who have that result after having read one of their books. He hits the winners list. The story dragged. The switching of viewpoints can be wonderful if done properly. This wasn't one of them. I kept feeling like slapping the main characters and saying "OH just get on with it." The feel of the book was disjointed before I started to skip parts due to sheer boredom. What really suprised me was skipping didn't hurt the feel one bit. The disjointed rating stayed the same. Somehow I don't think that can be classified as good writing. The characters didn't save the day and involve me enough to make me want to read.

I felt like slapping the author when I had to skip what became boring recitations of all the songs he knows. I pray it is all he knows. I would hate to think there is more in store for us. There is a LOT of difference in listening to music, finding it in a movie sound track and reading about it. Save it for the movie if it ever makes it. Read Vachss for how it is suppose to be done and spare us Please.

The story just didn't hold together well enough to avoid me starting the old skip this. Even with all the skipping I did I found I didn't lose much. That says a lot.

I looked at his new one and ran far far away to writers I know I enjoy.

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 is Edward Jones, check out his story collection "Lost in the City" if you can find it). In his tenth book, middle-aged PI Derek Strange and younger white ex-cop Terry Quinn return for their second tour of DC's mean streets following Right as Rain.

If the theme of that last book was racism, this one's is hopelessness. The two main stories revolve around teenagers who have lost any sense of hope and whose existence has spiraled into ugliness from which they are incapable of breaking free. One of these stories follows three boys as they peddle hydro (pot), boost cars, bet o dogfights, listen to tunes, eat fast food, and eventually commit murder. The trio are emblematic of many kids who grow up in the ghetto, with no fathers, no guidance, and ultimately no hope. All they have is their street rep and a resignation that they will die young. When they murder someone close to Strange, he races to identify and track them down before the police do. The other story revolves around a nasty pimp (as if there's any other kind) who specializes in teenage talent, and what happens when Quinn helps a prostitution support group try and extract one of the girls and take her home.

The antidote to this theme of hopelessness is Strange and Quinn's coaching a neighborhood Pee-Wee football team where they try to teach the boys the right way to live and to see that life holds possibilities for them. Of course, as in all Pelecanos' books, there's a running dark tone that lets the reader know there are few happy endings in this world. Mixed in with the two "cases" are the duo's personal struggles, the main one being Strange's attempt to come to terms with his relationship with his office managed Janine and her son. Quinn, meanwhile, struggles with his own inner rage and embarks on a new relationship. As in the previous book Strange and Quinn make a nice odd couple as they verbally spar with one another about race, although Pelecanos has subtly made them more comfortable with each other.

If you've enjoyed Pelecanos' previous books, you're likely to enjoy this one as well. It's a definite step up from Right as Rain, and full of all the usual Pelecanos details about music, cars, and sports.

This gritty, hard-boiled crime novel is a little hard to take--I almost didn't make it past the street-tough, violent young perps in the first chapter. But I am glad I presevered for this look that most of us who live in D.C.--I have lived in the D.C. area all of my life--don't see from the suburbs. There is just enough recognizable in the streets, bars, landmarks and radio stations that you know Pelecanos is a D.C. native who knows what goes on in the streets.

P.I. Derek Strange teams up with his white friend and former D.C. cop Terry Quinn to work on several cases. There are many interesting story lines--one missing girl turned prostitute case from the P.I firm, a plot of revenge on two levels--one for "dissing" a street punk and the other for a senseless killing and very personal stories of working with a Pee Wee football team to give neighborhood kids a chance and for Strange and Quinn trying to redeem their own personal lives.

After learning more about Pelecanos, I found out that Derek Strange and other characters have drawn on many aspects of his life--from helping his father in a greasy spoon diner in D.C., to his profiling of a shoe clerk--an occupation he lived for several years--to his frequenting many of the hangouts of Strange and Quinn.

Pelecanos paints a very vivid picture of the hopelessness, crime and the allure of the drug trade for youths with few options and a very short life expectancy. There is hope in his story--through the work of volunteers with football and other youth activities, we see that there is a way out for some of the kids if they choose it. Hell to Pay is a grim story, but I am glad he told it and I read it. I plan to go back and read the first story of Strange and Quinn, "Right as Rain" as well as his early novels.

These days there are a handful of names working the hardboiled/detective/cop genre that you can trust: James Ellroy, Dennis Lehane, and Michael Connelly top that list. One name that has hovered around the edges has always been George P. Pelecanos. For Pelecanos to be on the fringe of this group is criminal. Pelecanos is hands down the finest writer working the genre. The question then is why most have never heard of him? I have my thoughts on this subject, but I'll be kind and sum it up to poor marketing on his previous titles.

"Hell to Pay" is Pelecanos' tenth novel and second to feature the team of private investigator Derek Strange and his sometime employee/partner Terry Quinn. As with all of his previous work "Hell to Pay" is centered around the streets of Washington DC. Not the well-lit and clean DC streets that the tourists frequent, but the real DC streets, the streets that are filled with the thrown away and the unwanted. Streets where the wrong look or wrong walk can get you killed. If you think that the DC that Pelecanos operates in has gotten kinder or gentler since last year's "Right as Rain", you're off the mark. "Hell to Pay" begins in the open wound that is the inner city ghetto. Pelecanos introduces us to three of the main characters as they listen to DMX, pack heat, smoke dope, and drink as they prepare to head out to a dogfight.

The first victim to fall in Pelecanos' latest is one Lorenze Wilder, killed for trying to pull a small change burn in a drug deal. The amount of cash lost is of no account, however this is DC and if word gets out that you've been played once, your business will be history, so Wilder goes down. If Wilder would have been murdered alone it would have hardly registered a mention in the press, but Lorenze was not alone. In the car with him was his young nephew Joe who had just left football practice, catching a ride with his uncle instead of his usual ride, his coach, Derek Strange.

Strange struggles with this murder. As he fights with himself over the death of Joe Wilder his lover/secretary calls him on his infidelity. Strange's relationship with her as well as her teenage son becomes strained. The life of Derek Strange has begun to unravel when he steps into the home of a noted DC drug lord who is seeking his help. Strange listens to his proposition and is forced into a decision. Does he do what his heart tells him is right or does he follow his head. Strange now finds himself in a situation where he feels that either decision will be the wrong one.

While Strange is involved in his case Quinn has taken on the task of finding a young girl that has been lost to the streets. In the process the hotheaded Quinn as well as his young informant run afoul of the girls pimp, Worldwide Wilson. And while the love life of his partner Strange begins to deteriorate, Quinn falls for one of the women that has put him on this case.

From this point we see the main characters all heading for inevitable violence. Pelecanos exposes the sad truth that on the street and in the life all you have is your name and rep. Whether you are a street hustler or a kingpin, if either of those gets tarnished or questioned, you are one step away from being replaced by the next young stud. Pelecanos also points out that folks in that life often face hard choices in regard to their own crews. It's a hard world and it takes a hard man to survive and the hardest as well as the weakest will struggle to survive at any cost.

Fans of Pelecanos know to expect a violent ending to his books and "Hell to Pay" is no different, but instead of the gunfights of his past novels, Pelecanos goes old school with some bloody fisticuffs. "Hell to Pay" does end with a few twists, and Pelecanos uses the last few pages of this novel to set up the next tale of Strange and Quinn.

Pelecanos fills his books with emotion and dirty realism. His writing is not overblown or forced; it flows simply and engages the reader immediately. As with all his other novels, it is hard to put this one down once you begin. Pelecanos is a criminally under appreciated writer, and anyone missing the boat on his work is truly missing
out on one of the most talented writers of our time.

You can certainly smell and feel life on the inner-city streets of Washington D.C in this story.

But maybe that is the problem, the violence and lives of the people described is just too depressing to make compelling reading.

The plot lost direction at times and wandered off on tangents, without contibuting anything to the story.

If you like urban, gritty, realistic to a fault, novels about life on the mean streeets - then this is for you. But if don't, then give it a miss.

Derek Strange is a tough but sensitive black private eye with his own agency, an honorable ex-cop somewhere in his middle fifties, who prides himself on being a role model for his neighborhood. His partner in the agency is the hot-tempered, white ex-cop Terry Quinn.

Strange is working a background check on a young man who is engaged to a friend's daughter. Also a couple of crusading young female ex-cops, who specialize in locating minors, hire them to help liberate an underage prostitute named Jennifer Marshall from the clutches of a pimp named Worldwide Wilson.

Strange is coaching a peewee football team of poor kids with the help of a couple of fathers, a couple of cops and Quinn. As Quinn tangles with Wilson, three young thugs begin to linger at the fringes of football practice. Are they there because of Strange's investigation? Then one of the stars on Strange's football team is killed in a drive by. Strange and Quinn set out to find the killers and their investigation leads them deep inside the city's labyrinth of crime and to the very lethal Worldwide Wilson.

Strange and Quinn are assailed on all sides by young, gun toting players in the drug trade, who demand respect at the point of a gun. Strange deplores the way these kids act, trying to prove they are real men, backing it up with their guns, and he longs for a time in the nation's capital that he has idealized from his youth.

For all its violence and its portrait of what's wrong with parts of our society, and despite the emotional ride you'll go on in this story, this book is strangely not depressing. It's actually a story of moral accountability, redemption and hope and I can't recommend it highly enough.