For Joey Recevo and Pete Karras, two kids from one of Washington's rougher neighborhoods, the easiest work to find after the War is all criminal---providing a little muscle for a local boss. But Karris is soft on his fellow immigrants, and the boss can't let his mob get soft, so one of his boys gives Karras a painful lesson. 
Three years later, it's the same mob that figures big Nick Stefanos's grill needs protection---and this decision will once again bring Joey and Pete face-to-face. In this final confrontation, the two of them will find the meaning of friendship, the heart of honor, and the cost of both.
Powerfully told, elegantly wrought, George P. Pelecanos's The Big Blowdown is a knockout.

The Big Blowdown

Literature & Fiction

PELECANOS, George

United States

Minotaur Books

On a hot summer afternoon in 1972, three teenagers drove into an unfamiliar neighborhood and six lives were altered forever. Thirty-five years later, one survivor of that day reaches out to another, opening a door that could lead to salvation. But another survivor is now out of prison, looking for reparation in any form he can find it. The Turnaround takes us on a journey from the rock-and-soul streets of the '70s to the changing neighborhoods of D.C. today, from the diners and auto garages of the city to the inside of Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital, where wounded men and women have returned to the world in a time of war. A novel of fathers and sons, wives and husbands, loss, victory and violent redemption, The Turnaround is another compelling, highly charged novel from George Pelecanos, "the best crime novelist in America." -Oregonian

The Turnaround

Back Bay Books

On a hot summer afternoon in 1972, three teenagers drove into an unfamiliar neighborhood and six lives were altered forever.Thirty five years later, one survivor of that day reaches out to another, opening a door that could lead to salvation. But another survivor is now out of prison, looking for reparation in any form he can find it.THE TURNAROUND takes us on a journey from the rock-and-soul streets of the '70s to the changing neighborhoods of D.C. today, from the diners and auto garages of the city to the inside of Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital, where wounded men and women have returned to the world in a time of war. A novel of fathers and sons, wives and husbands, loss, victory and violent redemption, THE TURNAROUND is another compelling, highly charged novel from George Pelecanos, "the best crime novelist in America." -Oregonian

Contemporary

Little. Brown and Company

Gus Ramone is "good police," a former Internal Affairs investigator now working homicide for the city's Violent Crime branch. His new case involves the death of a local teenager named Asa whose body has been found in a local community garden. The murder unearths intense memories of a case Ramone worked as a patrol cop twenty years earlier, when he and his partner, Dan "Doc" Holiday, assisted a legendary detective named T. C. Cook. The series of murders, all involving local teenage victims, was never solved. In the years since, Holiday has left the force under a cloud of morals charges, and now finds work as a bodyguard and driver. Cook has retired, but he has never stopped agonizing about the "Night Gardener" killings.The new case draws the three men together on a grim mission to finish the work that has haunted them for years. All the love, regret, and anger that once burned between them comes rushing back, and old ghosts walk once more as the men try to lay to rest the monster who has stalked their dreams. Bigger and even more unstoppable than his previous thrillers, George Pelecanos achieves in The Night Gardener what his brilliant career has been building toward: a novel that is a perfect union of suspense, character, and unstoppable fate.

The Night Gardener

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Every man has his dark side . . . Spero Lucas confronts his own in the most explosive thriller yet from one of America's best-loved crime writers. The job seems simple enough: retrieve the valuable painting -- "The Double" -- Grace Kinkaid's ex-boyfriend stole from her. It's the sort of thing Spero Lucas specializes in: finding what's missing, and doing it quietly. But Grace wants more. She wants Lucas to find the man who humiliated her -- a violent career criminal with a small gang of brutal thugs at his beck and call. Lucas is a man who knows how to get what he wants, whether it's a thief on the run -- or a married woman. In the midst of a steamy, passionate love affair that he knows can't last, in pursuit of a dangerous man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, Lucas is forced to decide what kind of man he is -- and how far he'll go to get what he wants.

The Double (Spero Lucas Series)

Crime fiction writer George Pelecanos introduces Spero Lucas, an anti-hero making his place in the world one battle at a time. Includes a bonus work of short fiction focusing on Spero's early life. Spero Lucas has a new line of work. Since he returned home to Washington, D.C. after serving in Iraq, he has been doing special investigations for a defense attorney. He's good at it, and he has carved out a niche: recovering stolen property, no questions asked. His cut is forty percent. A high-profile crime boss who has heard of Lucas's specialty hires him to find out who has been stealing from his operation. It's the biggest job Spero has ever been offered, and he quickly gets a sense of what's going on. But before he can close in on what's been taken, he tangles with a world of men whose amorality and violence leave him reeling. Is any cut worth your family, your lover, your life? The first in a series of thrillers featuring Spero Lucas, The Cut is the latest confirmation of why George Pelecanos is "perhaps America's greatest living crime writer."-Stephen King

The Cut (Spero Lucas Series, 1)

Reagan Arthur Books

Reagan Arthur / Back Bay Books

In this superbly crafted DC noir, hard-drinking Nick Stefanos is hired to find a friend's missing wife -- if he doesn't hit rock bottom first. Nick Stefanos has given up his job in sales to tend bar at the Spot, where drinks and women are both a bit too easily available, and the routine is starting to feel as dead-end as his last gig. But things are about to change. First, his high-school friend Billy Goodrich asks him to find his wife April, who he says left him for small-time crime boss Joey DiGeordano. In fact, April has taken off with hog farmer/bondage freak Tommy Crane and, it turns out, with $200,000 of DiGeordano family money. There are powerful enemies on her trail -- and now on Nick's trail, too. Discover the early work of the Emmy-nominated writer from The Wire and The Deuce, whose authentic sense of place, sharp musical references, and hardboiled style make him one of the most acclaimed in the mystery genre.

Nick's Trip (Nick Stefanos Series, 2)

As the advertising director of Nutty Nathan's, Nick Stefanos knows all the tricks of the electronics business. Blow-out sales and shady deals were his life. When one of the stockboys disappears, it's not news: just another metalhead who went off chasing some dream of big money and easy living. But the kid reminded Nick of himself twelve years ago: an angry punk hooked on speed metal and the fast life. So when the boy's grandfather begs Nick to find the kid, Nick says he'll try. A Firing Offense, Nick Stefanos' debut, shows why, as Barry Gifford puts it, "To miss out on Pelecanos would be criminal."

A Firing Offense (Nick Stefanos Series, 1)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PELECANOS, George. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by PELECANOS, George

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PELECANOS, George. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Big Blowdown

The Turnaround

The Turnaround

The Night Gardener

The Double (Spero Lucas Series)

The Double (Spero Lucas Series)

The Cut (Spero Lucas Series, 1)

The Cut (Spero Lucas Series, 1)

Nick's Trip (Nick Stefanos Series, 2)

A Firing Offense (Nick Stefanos Series, 1)