The Sweet Forever [Hardcover]

George P. Pelecanos (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 1998

One of the 1990s' rising stars of crime fiction delivers a bold, brilliant tale of mystery, revenge, and survival in the 1980s, when cocaine and money ruled the city streets and even the good guys wanted a piece of the action.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

George P. Pelecanos's latest book is not only a tremendously detailed and emotionally powerful crime novel but also a virtual compendium and update of his other excellent novels that are all similarly rooted in the nonpolitical neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. Brought back for major roles are Marcus Clay, Dimitri Karras, and other important players from King Suckerman. There are poignant cameos by Randolph of Shoedog as well as the two Nick Stefanos--grandfather and grandson--from The Big Blowdown, A Firing Offense, Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go, and Nick's Trip. As always, Pelecanos uses jabs of pop music, basketball, clothes, and cars to quickly root us in time and place.

It's 1986, 10 years after the Bicentennial events of King Suckerman, so a woman in her 30s wears a Susanna Hoffs-style haircut "from the cover of the 'All Over the Place' album, not the redone look off the new LP." Dimitri, after a brief career as a teacher, is now working full-time for his friend Marcus's expanded chain of four Real Right record stores; he drives a BMW 325 and wears his graying hair moussed and spiked. (He also snorts more cocaine than Al Pacino did in Scarface, one of several films used as icons here.) The doomed basketball star Len Bias--just finishing his college career and about to sign a huge deal with the Boston Celtics--is on TV screens everywhere, admired equally by the former local hoops hero Clay and a conflicted cop named Kevin Murphy who has misplaced his moral compass. The complicated, satisfying plot involves $25,000 stolen from a drug dealer; several children in peril; smart adults who screw up their lives in dumb ways; and the speed with which violence festers and explodes in unexpected directions. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

Pelecanos (King Suckerman) lays a fair claim to be the Zola of Washington, D.C. The latest of his thrillers, which use a recurring cast of ordinary Washingtonians to chronicle the city's decline since WWII, brings us to 1986, when Vietnam vet Marcus Clay, founder of ("African American Owned and Operated") Real Right Records, and his employee and best friend, aging Greek-American cokehead Dmitri Karras, witness a grisly car accident outside Clay's newest record shop on the struggling U Street strip. A suburbanite, in town to score blow from Karras, steals $25,000 in drug money from the car and inadvertently starts a race between local hoods and dirty cops?to get the money back and avenge the theft?that jeopardizes the neighborhood's fragile peace. As always, the intertwined fates of black and white Washington inform the fates of Pelecanos's individual characters, and if he cooks up saccharine subplots for his protagonists, the city's large and small tragedies?its crack epidemic, the overdose of local hero Len Bias, the disgrace of home rule, the withering of D.C.'s last independent music scenes, the ugly segregation of the place?cut the sweetness and haunt the compelling main plot from beginning to end. With characters for whom the White House is just a tourist attraction, Pelecanos is that rare bird among Washington novelists, a writer who loves and knows the city he writes about.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (August 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316691097
• ISBN-13: 978-0316691093
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #206,956 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

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is one heck of a beautiful book--A real stunner!, June 10, 1999

By 

Craig Larson (Maple Grove, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sweet Forever (Hardcover)

If you haven't read George P. Pelecanos, you're missing one hell of an experience! This is easily his best book and that's saying alot, since he's yet to make a misstep with any of his crime/detective novels.

_The Sweet Forever_ is a beautifully- done book (one of the jacket blurbs likens it to a crime-thriller version of _Bonfire of the Vanities_, a particularly apt comparison, I think). It is the second book to feature the team of Dimitri Karras/Marcus Clay (first introduced in _King Suckerman_), two old friends now running a chain of D.C.-based record stores.

The book is set in 1986, when cocaine was at its peak of popularity and just before the advent of crack. The streets of Washington D. C. are growing ever more dangerous and the town continues to dwindle and wither away, ignored by a corrupt, drug-using mayor and his regime.

Dimitri and Marcus run afoul of a gang of cocaine runners in the neighborhood of Marcus' new store,located in a particularly run-down part of the city. He's trying to put something back into the community, so he's willing to put up with slow sales. But when the gang members start pushing around young kids in the area, Marcus gets involved, almost against his better judgement.

One of the neat things about the book is that Dimitri himself is hooked on cocaine and his habit is dragging him down further and further, only he himself is not aware of this yet. The novel gets only that much more morally complex when one of the two leads is involved, however slightly, in the very drug trade that is ruining the city and which the characters must battle with.

There are so many great scenes here and great characters. Marcus has a huge heart and is willing to go out on the line for people that some might ignore or turn their backs on. Add in a corrupt cop whose conscience keeps digging at him and a drug runner who isn't sure about what he's doing, and you've got one memorable mixture.

I'm a sucker for emotional movies, I'll admit. Play my heartstrings and I get a lump in my throat just like that. But I very seldom, if ever, have the same response to the written word. When reading this book, however, I had more "throat-lump" moments than I could keep track of. This is very highly recommended and a perfect example of how the lowly "crime thriller" can operate far outside the boundaries of its genre. This is literature, folks!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What else would you be looking for in a crime novel?, July 13, 2002

By 

brazos49 "brazos49" (Sugar Land, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sweet Forever (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a flat out terrific book. Pelecanos weaves an intriguing story about a search for some stolen drug money, a battle for control of a neighborhood and a number of characters looking for a different direction for their lives. The scene descriptions are vivid and the character development is superb. Exactly what else would you be looking for in a crime novel?

As a confirmed Pelecanos fan now after reading several of his books, I'd recommend a couple of things to anyone considering reading his work. First, if you like tough, gritty crime novels, definitely read his work. It is excellent. Second, I think you're better off by reading the old stuff before the newer work. The reason for this is that a number of the characters appear in multiple books and if you know a character will show up in a later work as an older person, you know they didn't get killed in the earlier work.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars At the top of his genre..., August 5, 2000

By 

R. Peterson "International citizen" (Leverett, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Sweet Forever (Mass Market Paperback)

Set in Washington DC in the last 1980s, this is a very well done cops and robbers genre detective novel - but then it is much more. Part of why I loved this book was because it was set in a city I know so well that it was a little like being at home. The characters in Pelecanos' story are dirty cops, drug runners and pushers, a couple of record store managers, a couple of street kids (who might or might not go bad), and a backdrop of March Madness in a city that was cheering on the magnificent Len Bias (at U Maryland) the year he suddenly dropped dead (weak heart + cocaine) at the tender age of 22. The book opens with a number of interesting witnesses to a horrible car crash on U Street in which the driver (a drug-runner, we later learn) is decapitated, and the bag containing all his money is snatched impetuously out of the back seat by a bystander who regrets it later. The tale weaves in and out of, primarily, Marcus Clay's (the record store owner) and his buddy, Dimitri Karras's (the manager of the stores) lives during these events. The prose is excellent for a crime novel, and I am eager to continue reading Pelecanos.