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Loading... Shame the Devil (2000)by George P. Pelecanos
None. good (  ) jenny.whitman | Apr 8, 2012 |  This remarkable tale of loss and redemption caps off a series of three crime novels set in Washington D.C., not the Washington D.C. you might think that you know, but a city of crime and shadows. It might sound silly, but this book took my breath away. (  ) zenosbooks | Feb 26, 2009 | The fourth in the Washington DC series, this one is set in the 1990s. This one lacks the interesting period detail of the previous three books, simply because the 90s weren't so interesting for music and fashion as the 50s, 70s and 80s. Also the big showdown is pretty similar to the big showdown in the previous books so what is meant to be the griping climax isnt as interesting as much of the rest of the book. However, what this book does have is great characters, even the good characters are flawed. The ending (the bit after the showdown) was brilliant and moving. ( ) sanddancer | Nov 9, 2008 | 4003. Shame the Devil A Novel, by George P. Pelecanos (read 29 March 2005) This is a hard-boiled crime novel, with a massacre of four people at a pizza joint as the basic event. It is laid in Washington, D. C., but not in the 'corridors of power.' Lots of violence, unnecessary explicit sex scenes, fast-paced (you never wonder when something will happen--it always does), there is no subtlety in the story line. This book came out in 2000 and apparently is a book in a series dealing with the characters therein. I could read something more by him, who is the present day equivalent of authors like Dashiell Hammett, whose The Maltese Falcon I read with appreciation on 3 Mar 1995. (  ) Schmerguls | Oct 15, 2007 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0440236355, Mass Market Paperback)Penzler Pick, February 2000: Just as Robert B. Parker and Dennis Lehane have made Boston their own and Los Angeles has been the distinct province of a lineage leading from Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald to Michael Connelly and Robert Crais, so is George Pelecanos the storyteller who's put Washington, D.C., on the noir map. Once considered "the best-kept secret in crime fiction" by his peers, he is now fast leaving behind those days of strictly word-of-mouth fame and cult status.Telling it like he sees it, and looking fearlessly into those dark, forgotten alleyways that lay too far beyond the corridors of power to make it into any guidebooks, Pelecanos conjures up a gritty, ghostly Washington of working-class neighborhoods and aging suburbs and shoots it through with chillingly unpredictable menace. Most Washington natives probably wouldn't recognize the place--but they couldn't stop trying either, knowing that they've at least glimpsed (out of the corners of their eyes) those environs where a Pelecanos character is most at home. In Shame the Devil, we find a society of grieving men and women connected by loss, betrayal, the need for revenge, and the shadowy presence of evil. As in other Pelecanos tales, the heroes are not easily identified, love is a coming together of wounded souls, and answers are found where least expected. In the aftermath of a botched armed robbery, a fair number of lives have been thrown into a downward spiral. The problems, however, come on faster and with more fury once the status quo sustaining the survivors has been breached by an ill-wishing and unwanted addition to their little group. Here are two favorite moments. In one, protagonist Dimitri Karras asks the name of a fellow bar patron. Hearing that he's called Happy, Karras comments that he doesn't look too happy. The answer: "He's pacing himself." The other: we hear the thoughts of the sociopathic villain: "Some believed that incarceration was a mark of failure, but Frank disagreed. Prison was an essential element of any career criminal's education." With Shame the Devil, Pelecanos solidifies his position among the elite of the brilliant coterie of young noir writers who are creating the emerging classics of the genre. --Otto Penzler (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:51:29 -0500) A man falling apart after his young son is shot during a robbery in Washington gets a new lease on life when the robber returns to the city. Tipped off by a PI, Dimitri Karras sets out to avenge his son. |
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