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Former bartender, electronics salesman, shoe salesman, construction worker, and independent film producer George Pelecanos brings a wealth of non-academic as well as journalistic experience to his writing. His books, which include Nick's Trip , Shoedog , Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go A Firing Offence, The Big Blowdown , King Suckerman ,The Sweet Forever , Shame the Devil , Right As Rain and Hell To Pay have gradually become accepted by a reading audience eager to embrace new talent. Pelecanos, a Greek American, is reputed to have been aware of some racial prejudice during his formative years and has certainly taken up the cause, in his books, of those marginalised (to employ the fashionable term) by modern society. He has obviously studied the plight of those black Americans living in a futureless abyss in and around the Washington DC area where he sets his books. Derek Strange and Terry Quinn who featured in Right as Rain are the protagonists of Soul Circus: Nick Stefanos , Pelecanos' chief character in another series, also plays a part in this episode in the casebook of Strange Investigations. Derek Strange, the likable black Everyman private investigator of Right As Rain, has married his assistant, Janine, and is attempting to balance his increasingly settled and happy home life against the demands of his profession. He is striving to prevent a client, drug dealer and overall bad man, Granville Oliver, from receiving the death penalty in a society which abhors that penalty while permitting it. Oliver's removal from the active crime scene of Washington DC has left a niche which various gangs, not the least being the one led by Oliver's former deputy, Philip Wood, seek to capture. Wood is now recognised to be Oliver's enemy. White former policeman, Terry Quinn of the incandescent temper and paranoid attitude to the environment in which he works, is not the most reliable partner for cool headed and pragmatic Strange yet somehow the pair conduct their business in an amicable relationship. Quinn is helping his female investigator partner, Sue Tracy, search for a teenage girl, a runaway who had last been seen as the star of a pornographic movie. Strange and Quinn have also been hired by would-be crook, Mario Durham, older brother of more successful baddie, Dewayne Durham, to find his former girlfriend. The outcome of that particular investigation, while nominally successful, is tragic as it leads to the death of the girl. Quinn and Strange are faced with the moral dilemma posed by their professional life, one possessed of no clear blacks and whites. Strange can only do his best to bring morally satisfactory outcomes to his cases. He is constantly aware of the devastating hopelessness of the lives of the children of the black ghetto. Pelecanos adds a touch of irony when he has the mother of the criminal Durham brothers reflecting on her undeniably unpleasant and cruel sons yet seeing them as 'good' boys' with whom she has been 'blessed'. Pelecanos has been able, in this book, to indulge his taste for cars, music and shoes. There is very little mystery to the tale but a great deal of violence, hate and pessimism. Corruption in high places is both explicit and implied. Tensions between the races are depicted with a clarity that must bring uneasiness to the reader. This hard-boiled tale has its soft places but it should cement its author's place in the affections of the readers of this genre. Note: This review is based on the Australian edition, released by Orion Oz edition on May 2, 2003. ISBN 0752851918 $Au29.95
Reviewed by Denise Wels, July 2003
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