The Night Gardener (Hardcover)

~ George Pelecanos (Author)
Key Phrases: jimmy bar, homicide police, Asa Johnson, Rhonda Willis, Romeo Brock (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Pelecanos (Drama City) delivers a dignified, character-driven epic that succeeds as both literary novel and page-turner. In 1985, the body of a 14-year-old girl turns up in a Washington, D.C., park, the latest in a series of murders by a killer the media dub "The Night Gardener." T.C. Cook, the aging detective on the case, works with a quiet, almost monomaniacal, focus. Also involved are two young uniformed cops, Gus Ramone, who's diligent, conscientious and unimpressed by heroics, and Dan "Doc" Holiday, an adrenaline junkie who's decidedly less straight. Fast forward 20 years. Detective Ramone, now married with kids of his own, investigates the murder of one of his teenage son's friends. The homicide closely resembles the earlier unsolved Night Gardener murders. Holiday, now an alcoholic chauffeur and bodyguard, follows the case on his own and tracks down Cook, long retired but still obsessed with the original murders. While the three work together toward a suspenseful ending, Pelecanos emphasizes the fallacy of "solving" a murder and explores the ripple effects of violent crime on society. (Aug.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

In this 13th novel, George Pelecanos returns to the gritty streets of Washington, D.C.—a far cry from Georgetown and Capitol Hill—at the top of his game. Critics agree that Night Gardener transcends the crime-novel genre. While it contains whodunit elements, it's much more about crime, criminal motivation, and the souls of everyone involved. Authentic descriptions of Washington's urban landscape, the compelling characters, and the story line's immediacy make Night Gardener one of the author's best to date. A few critics noted a meandering plot and stylistic quirks (the victims' names are all palindromes), but most agreed that Night Gardener "is heart-in-your-throat gripping from beginning to end" (New York Times).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (August 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316156507
• ISBN-13: 978-0316156509
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #186,730 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just Didn't Work for Me, October 18, 2006

By	Amy Graham (Scottsdale, AZ) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In The Night Gardner, we are introduced to a trio of police officers at the scene of a crime, the third of it's kind...two rookies and one seasoned veteran. Outside of outlining them as determined, seasoned veteran that everyone looks up to (legend), Holiday, cop destined not to be a straight arrow, and Ramone a cop destined to be a straight arrow. The introductory section serves as a brief interlude to introduce the bare facts that the book is based on...the nature of the crimes (pedophilia, dumping bodies in community gardens, and the palindrome thing) and the men who ultimately solve them, sorta.

The largest chunk of the book wends it was through the murder of Asa, which has striking similarities to the original three crimes 20 year ago...and touch close to home for Ramone, because his son was once friends with the murdered boy. In the end, each of the four distinct storylines merge and become interconnected. This is my first encounter with Pelacanos' work...and he seems to have quite the loyal following. I can't say that I enjoyed The Night Gardner as much as others seem to, it had good bones and a compelling plot...but somewhere along the way, it just didn't quite pan out into a story I really got into.

For me, it was a struggle to keep reading, I almost gave up half a dozen times...there were so many characters and the perspective shifted throughout, there were four distinct storylines to follow, and it was heavy on the dialogue and light on compelling the reader to be interested or care about these people. If I had read this over more than two nights, I would have easily lost track of the characters (and their level of importantce at various times during the storyline) and had trouble remembering what was important when and why. I've read a number of other books with convoluted story lines where many tributaries eventually wind their way to the main point...but his one was just painful to navigate and for not that great a reward at the end. I will say that the second half was more intriguing than the first half...but beyond that I just didn't find much to love about this book.

In the end, The Night Gardner really doesn't seem to be a police procedural or even really a murder mystery...it really seems to be more of a commentary on how we live as people, how racial lines are drawn. Pelacanos presents some stereotypes and the characters live through the reality of them as we sit in our comfortable homes and experience it through them. In the end, we are mainly left with the unsatisfying feeling this book is really about dealing with the fact that murder, crime, race issues and the like aren't stationary events...that they flow out into the community as a whole and beyond, affecting us all, yet which never really seems to be "solved" or fixed. In the end, it was an ok way to spend a couple of nights...but I wouldn't add The Night Gardner to my permanent collection, nor would I be inclined to recommend it to others. It is an interesting read as a slice of life...accurate Washington D.C. place descriptions, up to date cultural and popular culture references...and it's certainly well written, but as a murder mystery, it doesn't quite make it for me.

40 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable, August 20, 2006

By	A reader and a writer (Arlington, VA, USA) - See all my reviews

This book kept me awake for two nights running. The first time, it was because the story was so good that I couldn't put it down. The next night, it was because even though I'd finished reading it, the book wouldn't let me go: I kept going back and rereading portions of it, haunted.

Everything works, here, and every piece seems perfect: the narrative (gripping, yet beautifully formed), the setting (no American city lives on the page more exactly than Pelecanos's D.C.), the dialogue (it's so right, he might have tape-recorded it), and--above all--the characters and the complex, tragic, unillusioned, and deeply humane understanding that commits them to your memory like living persons long after you have turned the final page.

Pelecanos has been a hell of a good writer for awhile now. With The Night Gardener, he becomes something more: someone whose writing can twist your heart wide open and change how you see the ordinary world.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical, March 2, 2007

By	John Korpics "Train Reader" (Waccabuc, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I loved reading this book. I guess I was expecting a novel like this to be essentially about a murder and the hunt for the killer, with everything else working in service to that end, but what i found was that the real joy of this story was in its moments and conversations and rhythms, which were intoxicating and had the power to move me along all on their own. It is a crime novel almost as an afterthought, although there is plenty of blood and guns to keep the demons happy, but the real payoff is in its complex portrayal of the unpredictable and realistic human nature of the characters. In a genre that deals mostly in two-dimensional black and white characters, this book never stops surprising you with who does what and (most importantly) why.