Reviews

• A rare guidebook to the darker side of the Capital City of the U.S.A.

  I first knew this crime fiction writer,George Pelecanos,when I was reading "The Best American Mystery Stories,2003." "Hell to Pay" is about a pair of private investigators, Derek Strange,a black ex-cop and Terry Quinn,a white ex-cop. Derek also helps local kids as a coach of a football team. One of the boys was shot and killed. The target of the killers was his uncle who failed to pay the drugs he had bought from them. The murdered boy happened to be in his car. To Derek who was angered the hunt for the killers became personal. The writing style is vivid and sometimes vulgar. Sexual scenes are graphical: She applied more lotion to her hands and fisted his coxx. As her hand went up his shaxx,she feathered the head with her fingers...."Go now," he said and she pumped him faster. I prefer crime novels with few sexual scenes like those of Michael Connelly.But if you don't mind reading vivid sexual scenes,t recommend this book.

• Hell of a Read!

  I really enjoyed this second novel in the Derek Strange series. HELL TO PAY is an action novel from beginning to end with a great deal of substance in between. I didn't read any of the Derek Strange books in order. I read this novel after reading SOUL CIRCUS. I found out how Terry Quinn got that scar on his face from his run in with a seemingly larger than life pimp named Worldwide. The character Terry seems a lot more developed in this novel than in SOUL CIRCUS. This novel develops both characters personal lives such that they actually seem more like three dimensional characters. I've yet to read HARD REVOLUTION to find out the connection between Granville Oliver's father and Strange. Granville Oliver is the fictional drug kingpin introduced towards the end of this novel who figures more prominently in SOUL CIRCUS. I found this novel a joy to read it's a serial novel but newcomers to the series can pick up any of the Derek Strange novels and start from any point in the series.

• Three Stars

  it was ok,

• I am a fan

  I always enjoy Geoge Pelecanos novels ever since I viewed The Wire boxed set.. He conjures up Washinton so you can almost smell it. What more can an author achieve. His characters are always believable. I think he has taken over from James Lee Burke.

• Not as good as Right as Rain, but good

  This book, a sequel to Right as Rain, follows Derek Strange and Terry Quinn as they investigate a pair of problems that come to Strange's detective agency. In the one, Strange tasks Quinn with finding and retrieving a runaway girl who's been working as a prostitute on the streets of Washington D.C. At the same time, Strange is personally hired to look into the background of a young man who's planning on marrying the daughter of one of his friends. The latter case (and its solution) is a sort of black inner city version of a case the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency would take on. And just to make things more confusing, you can throw into the mix that Strange and Quinn coach a PeeWee football team, and one of the members gets killed, along with his uncle. Strange, of course, is interested in finding out who the killer is, especially when he discovers who the boy's father is. While I liked this book somewhat, I didn't enjoy it as much as some of Pelecanos' other books. It's not quite as coherent, plot-wise, so it has a sort of disjointed aspect to it that's a bit annoying. That being said, the characters are still interesting. The ending is a bit of a let-down, and rather anti-climactic, but the main part of the story is interesting and well-written. Recommended for Pelecanos fans...I would suggest if you're new to the author that you start elsewhere, though.

• Five Stars

  great book

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