Could the guy who gave this a two star review please get his head out of his (you know where)?
This is a wonderful read. It really compels the reader to push on in his reading despite fatigue or bleary eyeness to find out the basic question any mystery should provoke "What happens next?".
Pelecanos has developed a new hero in Spero Lucas, an orphan who was adopted by a Greek-American family in the District - Washington, D.C. (Spero is white but they have two black adopted sons as well and one natural daughter)- an interesting mix that can make for some unusual situations in this and future Lucas character novels. He's as interesting as Pelecanos' hero of his early novels - Derek Strange, the Privatwe Investigator and owner of Strange Investigations, if not more so. Strange is interesting for many reasons, not the least of which is that he's quite a conflicted character, who despite all his good works is more than slightly addicted to getting handjobs from Chinese and Korean prostitutes in D.C. area "massage parlors". Whether in the Derek Strange books or with his new character nobody knows or can describe the mean streets of DC like Pelecanos. (D.C. was the murder capital of America for several years running in the 90s and early 2000s and many if not a majority of the murders were related to the illegal drug trade). He was a Marine who served in Afghanistan and his elite forces combat training serves him well as an invesigator who works largely for a defense lawyer but freelances as well. With Spero sometimes the combat training and will to survive take over - then it's never pretty for the opposition and the reader should be warned that this a fairly violent tale and that Lucas is as much of an antihero as a hero. He's also a lusty, sexually forward young man, perhaps his need fo sexual conquests was stirred up by the enforced abstinance and denial of sexual outlets in his long combat tour of duty. Now a civilian he's making up for lost time, is one way of looking at it, and Lucas vows never to have regrets in his old age over women he was to timid to attempt to bed.
His standard fee for recovering lost or stolen items is 40 per cent. When he's asked to recover some stolen drug packages that 40 per cent fee looms large - Spero's cut would potentially be over 50 Grand, enough to live off for a fair amount of time, but will rubbing shoulders with the ruthless drug underworld make even that amount of money worth it.
I really must address what one reviewer called stereotypic characters. It has to do with some of the criminal class in this book (with the exception of one character all are African-American). Perhaps in this other reviewer's politically correct world criminals don't act or talk the way they do in Pelecanos' new novel - but in the real world they do. I give Pelecanos extra points for his rich and true character observations as well as a terse writing style that has no doubt been refined as an offshoot of his Television and screenwriting projects.
While some Pelecanos works never "charted" or languished around the bottom of the USA Today Top 150 books list, I've noticed that "The Cut" made the Top 150 almost immediately upon its release. It's too early to tell how far up the list it might go but this one might become the best seller that Pelecanos has been waiting for. If so, it will be well-deserved. This novel is a slam dunk - Five Stars!
-Dennis Orlandini
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Paris
Good as ever from George P, one of the masters.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 25, 2020
