George P. Pelecanos Book order

Pelecanos breaks new literary ground with the story of a dog's life--from the dog's perspective--on the mean streets of Washington, DC

Four blistering novellas, drawn together by themes of strife, violence, and humanity, from esteemed crime fiction writer George Pelecanos

World-class crime-writing with all the depth and satisfaction of a quality box-set from the award-winning producer and writer of THE DEUCE and THE WIRE.

A brand-new collection of stories from an award-winning writer of HBO series Treme and The Wire

Every man has his dark side... Spero Lucas confronts his own in an explosive thriller from the writer of the award-winning THE WIRE. Spero Lucas is a young Iraq war vet now working as a PI in Washington DC. He's hired by a young woman to find a painting she lost after being scammed by a super-smooth con-artist. Spero tracks the painting down, but the con-artist is part of a team of ruthless thugs, and the woman who hired Spero is brutally attacked as a warning to stay away. The warning doesn't work. Spero is angry and he goes on the offensive, taking out the gang one by one. But where do Spero's remorseless killings sit on the morality scale? Is he defending an innocent woman? Or have his experiences of war turned him into a ruthless killer, no better than the crooks he's up against?

Washington, D.C., 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. His former partner, Frank 'Hound Dog' Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn's turf, where a local drug addict's been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment. Soon both men are on the trail of a ruthless killer: Red Fury, so called for his looks and the car his girlfriend drives, but a name that fits his personality all too well. Red Fury doesn't have a retirement plan, as Vaughn points out - he doesn't care who he has to cross, or kill, to get what he wants. As the violence escalates and the stakes get higher, Strange and Vaughn know the only way to catch their man is to do it their own way. Rich with details of place and time - the cars, the music, the clothes - and fuelled by non-stop action, this is Pelecanos writing in the hard-boiled noir style that won him his earliest fans and placed him firmly in the ranks of the top crime writers in America.

The stunning new crime novel from the writer of THE WIRE.

When Thomas Flynn leaves his son, seventeen year old Chris, at Pine Ridge, a juvenile prison near Washington, D.C., his heart is broken but his mind is made up: Chris will have to pay for the mistakes he's made. Inside, Chris is exposed to kids from a different D.C. than the comfortable one he knew - one less remote from the street fights, car chases, and marijuana deals that got him here in the first place. A decade later, Chris and the friends he made at Pine Ridge seem reformed. Chris has a job, thanks to his father, a girlfriend, and his own apartment. But when he and the others are inadvertently caught up in a burglary, old habits and worse instincts rise to the surface, threatening this new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With the drama, compassion, and urgency for which Pelecanos is celebrated, The Way Home travels the streets of Washington, D.C. and tells the story of its people, and the tensions that always linger just out of sight, circling back again and again to that clapboard house on Livingston Street where Thomas and Chris Flynn's rocky relationship moves from distrust and scorn toward a flawed, but real, redemption. How far will a father go to save his son? That question is the beating pulse beneath George Pelecanos's spectacular new novel, a page-turning story of rebellion, greed, and the high price of a second chance.

Set against the backdrop of a life-changing summer day in 1972, the story intricately weaves together the lives of three teenagers and the long-lasting impact of their encounter. Decades later, one survivor seeks connection and healing, while another, recently released from prison, grapples with the need for reparation. The narrative explores themes of redemption, the complexity of survival, and the haunting shadows of the past that bind the characters together.

When the body of a local teenager turns up in a community garden, veteran homicide detective Gus Ramone teams up with T. C. Cook, a legendary, now retired detective, and Dan "Doc" Holiday, his former partner who left the force under a cloud of suspicion.