Friday, April 10, 2009

Right as Rain by George Pelecanos (39/81)

Category: Crime & Detectives (with a global theme)
Country: USA

The first in the series of books featuring the characters Strange and Quinn. Strange is a black private investigator, hired to investigate the killing of a black policeman. Quinn is the white former police officer who did the shooting and is coming to terms with his mistake and life outside of the police. Despite his connection with the case, Quinn ends up helping Strange to get to the bottom of things, which unsurprisingly involves police corruption and drugs.

It was typical Pelecanos fayre - the mean streets of Washington DC, awash with popular culture references, multi-racial characters and a big showdown at the end. It is a gritty portrayal of Washington, which is central to all of his books, and can't be doing much for the tourist industry.

It was a good read, not the most intellectually challenging, but you know what you are getting and it is easy to lose yourself in the plot for a few hours. However, I am beginning to find the plots a bit formulaic, especially that big risky showdown where the main characters take the law into their own hands, which is how all of his books I’ve read so far have ended.

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