King Suckerman- George Pelecanos (#10)
I've been meaning to read Pelecanos for a long time - people keep talking about how he's one of the new vanguard of hard-boiled crime fiction, plus he writes a lot about music, blah blah blah. So, when I see King Suckerman waiting for me on the shelves of my local Goodwill (in perfect condition for 1.99), I have to buy it! The lime green/hot pink cover signals it is no use resisting- time to finally read Pelecanos. Hmmmm. Overall, I would say that I liked it. It has been a long time since I've read straight-ahead hard-boiled fiction, and I had forgotten how graphically violent it can be. I was just looking at the cover, and saw mention of Pulp Fiction, which isn't too far off as far as the violence goes. I thought the main characters were interesting (this sounds just like the kind of book report that marlys advises against in how to groove on life), and the Washington DC setting was fairly exotic in time (1976) and space from where I sit right now. I guess this is the second of three novels featuring the same main characters - if I had known that ahead of time I probably would have been a little less stressed reading it. Long story short - very violent and had a really draggy section (about 75 pages long) in the beginning/middle. Once the action started picking up and the story started moving under its inevitable momentum, I enjoyed it much more. I sort of felt like the characters in that lost 75 pages were looking at their watches and listening to music wondering when the plot would roll around and sweep them up again. This is a really weird reaction for me to have because normally the plot is the last of my worries if I am invested enough in the characters. You could extrapolate that to mean that I wasn't invested in the characters, but by the end I really was. So, hmmm. I will read more of his, but it might be a little while.
I've been meaning to read Pelecanos for a long time - people keep talking about how he's one of the new vanguard of hard-boiled crime fiction, plus he writes a lot about music, blah blah blah. So, when I see King Suckerman waiting for me on the shelves of my local Goodwill (in perfect condition for 1.99), I have to buy it! The lime green/hot pink cover signals it is no use resisting- time to finally read Pelecanos. Hmmmm. Overall, I would say that I liked it. It has been a long time since I've read straight-ahead hard-boiled fiction, and I had forgotten how graphically violent it can be. I was just looking at the cover, and saw mention of Pulp Fiction, which isn't too far off as far as the violence goes. I thought the main characters were interesting (this sounds just like the kind of book report that marlys advises against in how to groove on life), and the Washington DC setting was fairly exotic in time (1976) and space from where I sit right now. I guess this is the second of three novels featuring the same main characters - if I had known that ahead of time I probably would have been a little less stressed reading it. Long story short - very violent and had a really draggy section (about 75 pages long) in the beginning/middle. Once the action started picking up and the story started moving under its inevitable momentum, I enjoyed it much more. I sort of felt like the characters in that lost 75 pages were looking at their watches and listening to music wondering when the plot would roll around and sweep them up again. This is a really weird reaction for me to have because normally the plot is the last of my worries if I am invested enough in the characters. You could extrapolate that to mean that I wasn't invested in the characters, but by the end I really was. So, hmmm. I will read more of his, but it might be a little while.
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