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George P. Pelecanos, the author of ten crime/noir novels, was
born in Washington, D.C. in 1957. He served as a producer on the feature
films Caught (1996), Whatever (1998) and Blackmale (1999). He was
the U.S. distributer of John Woo's cult classic, The Killer. As a
screenwriter, he has written an adaptation of King Suckerman for Dimension
Films, and was a co-writer on the recently completed feature Paid
in Full. He has completed a script based on a team in the American
Basketball Association, The Spirits of St. Louis, for HBO Films.
Pelecanos spent years developing his writing talent and gathering
his material from hard work and life in Washington D.C. He was employed
as a line cook, dishwasher, bartender, shoe salesman, electronics
salesman, and a construction worker-all before publishing his first
novel, A Firing Offense in 1992. His other books since then include
Nick's Trip (1993), Shoedog (1994), Down by the River Where the
Dead Men Go (1995), The Big Blowdown (1996), King Suckerman (1997),
The Sweet Forever (1998), Shame the Devil (2000), Right as Rain
(2001) and Hell to Pay (2002). He currently lives in Silver Spring,
Maryland with his wife and three children. His official website
is www.georgepelecanos.com.
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• Bibliography
• More Pelecanos on Bookreporter.com
HELL TO PAY
Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, the team of investigators who made their bestselling debut in Right As Rain, are hired to find a fourteen-year-old girl who's run away from her home in the suburbs. It's easy for Strange and Quinn to learn that the girl is now working as a prostitute in one of D.C.'s most brutal neighborhoods. Getting her to leave is harder. The two ex-cops think they know this world-but nothing in their experience has prepared them for the vengeance of Worldwide Wilson, the ruthless operator whose territory they are intruding upon. Their mission is fractured by a violent criminal act against a young player from the neighborhood football team that Strange coaches. Tracking down the perpetrators becomes a point of honor for Strange and Quinn, and their investigation leads them deep inside the city's labyrinth of crime-and back, again, to the lethal Worldwide Wilson.
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George Pelecanos's Summer Reading List
A World of Theives
by James Carlos Blake
Blake, the author of the classic In the Rogue Blood, is an
exciting, fearless historical novelist who writes about violence and
masculinity with naked honesty. Thieves, set in pre-Depression Texas
and Louisiana, is his latest.
Monte Walsh
by Jack Warner Schaefer
The book that inspired the great
Lee Marvin film, by the author of Shane. Many consider this to be
the best cowboy novel ever written. I've been saving this one for
my annual summer vacation to coastal Carolina (alternate: The Shootist,
by Glendon Swarthout).
No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home
by Chris Offutt
I recently finished Offutt's outstanding collection of short
stories, Out of the Woods, so I'm looking forward to this highly regarded
memoir describing the author's return to Kentucky hill country. Offutt,
like Daniel Woodrell and Larry Brown, is an American original.
Valdez Is Coming
by Elmore Leonard
A new edition and new cover art, which gives me an excuse to
reread my favorite Leonard. Valdez features a thrilling Western plot,
expertly-drawn characters, and seamless construction. As a bonus,
you get one of the coolest exit-lines in modern fiction. Many writers
will tell you that there's no such thing as a perfect novel. Maybe
not, but this comes close.
Can't Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy
Waters
by Robert Gordon
Given the subject's colorful past and Gordon's love and understanding
of the blues, this should be a winner. Besides, anything that drives
you back tothe original Chess recordings has to be worth reading.
Introduction by Keith Richards.
The Nanny Diaries
Not.
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Summer Reading Lists
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