“The Turnaround,” set deep in the heart of Washington D.C., is the story of six teenage boys, three of them white and three of them black, who have their lives forever changed on what should be just another day in the summer of 1972. Alex Pappas knows that he and his two friends, Billy Cachoris and Pete Whitten, have no business going into a black neighborhood looking for trouble but he cannot force himself to say the words that might stop Billy from driving them there.

After the three very briefly confront three black boys roughly their own age, Billy races them away in his father’s car only to find a turnaround barrier at the end of the street from which he had planned to escape the area. Still hoping to get away cleanly, Billy turns the car around but finds his only escape route blocked by the three neighborhood boys he is fleeing. In just a matter of seconds, one of the three white boys is shot dead and another is badly beaten and scarred for life. Two of the young black men are sentenced to long prison sentences a few weeks later and Alex Pappas begins the long process of putting his life back together.

Flash forward to 2007 and Alex is running the same family diner he worked in as a boy. He is a happily married man with one surviving son but is still deeply grieving the recent loss of his other son in Iraq. Every time he looks in a mirror Alex is reminded of “the incident,” as he calls it, so when a chance encounter at Walter Reed Hospital leads to contact with one of the black men involved in it, Alex agrees to meet with him to discuss their shared past.

“The Turnaround” is a novel about redemption and second chances, a character-driven story about six young men who randomly cross paths just long enough to make the biggest mistake of all their young lives. One of them paid the ultimate price and did not survive that day, two went to prison, and three of them had to pick up the emotional pieces and get on with their lives as best they could. Over all, “The Turnaround” is an inspirational story about personal loyalty, family ties, friendship and the mellowness and peace that sometimes come with age.

The novel does verge on over sentimentality at times, especially as regards its improbable sugar-sweet ending, but the level of brutality and violence exhibited by some characters saves it from reading more like a fairy tale than a crime thriller. As usual, Pelecanos has filled his novel with memorable characters, not the least of which is the city of Washington D.C. itself. Reading a George Pelecanos novel is almost like walking the streets of Washington D.C. at night – not, having now read Pelecanos on several occasions, something I am ever likely to do again.

Rated at: 3.5 ( )

In the 1970’s, three teen-age white boys - Billy, Pete and Alex – were out drinking, smoking pot and cruising. They drove into a black neighborhood, pulled up alongside three teen-aged black boys – Raymond, James and Charles - rolled down the window, threw a Hostess cherry pie at one the young men and yelled a racial epithet. When the white boys sped off, they discovered the street ended in a turnaround; when they returned the black youths were waiting for them. One boy, Pete, jumped out of the car and ran off; the rest were involved in “the incident” that left Billy, the driver of the car, dead and Alex wounded.

Thirty years later, Alex is running his father’s coffee shop and mourning the death of his younger son in Iraq. Pete is a hugely successful lawyer. James seems to have straightened himself out after years in prison and is working as an auto mechanic. Raymond is a physical therapist, working with wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital. Charles has been in and out of trouble and still seems to think the world owes him something.

After a chance encounter at Walter Reed, Alex and Raymond get together to talk and to try to make amends. Alex makes a startling discovery about “the incident,” and decides it’s time to make some changes in his life.

The title of The Turnaround by George Pelecanos is perfect – it signifies the turnaround involved in “the incident” and the turnaround most of the characters make in their lives. I really enjoyed this book and was engrossed in it and its characters from start to finish. The character development in this crime novel is fantastic. I empathized with most of the characters and wanted them to make good decisions. George Pelecanos has decided to include some social issues in his books and he includes the war and our treatment of veterans in this one, which I found fascinating too. The Turnaround has some graphic moments and foul language, but I thought they were both suitable for the nature of the novel. ( )

The Turnaround is the story of six teens whose lives are altered by one statement. Three bored D.C. teenagers decide to drive into unknown territory. Drunk, high and stupid, the passenger, Pete, uses a racial slur directed at three other teens on the sidewalk. When they try unsuccessfully to leave the area, Pete jumps out of the car and takes off. The driver, Billy gets out of the car and tries to reason with the 3 teens. Alex was just in the wrong car at the wrong time. Billy is shot and Alex has to go through 2 facial reconstruction surgeries. The other teens are Raymond and James, who are brothers. Charles is among the worst of bad influences.

Years later, their paths cross again. Can they forgive and forget and get past the awful incident? Or will they let it haunt them until they die?

This was a very good book! I can't wait to read another George Pelecano book. His writing style was very easy to get into. The only problem I had was keeping all the names straight. There are a lot of people in this book. I would highly recommend this one. ( )

George Pelecanos’s books are populated by denizens of slum housing, drug dens, and inner city street corners. Their stories can seem harsh and jarring, but they can also be ironically moving. The Turnaround is a departure from the author's previous formula involving police or private detectives. But it is similar in its strong local flavor (D.C. and its suburbs), in its startling evocation of the underclasses, and its mix of hope and despair.

The book begins in 1972, when three white boys, Billy, Pete, and Alex, high on beer and pot, go looking for trouble in a black neighborhood. They find it soon enough, but their attempted escape is stymied by an unanticipated dead end, or turnaround, at the end of the street.

The story picks up with the survivors thirty-five years later. Like his other books, we become enmeshed in a world of drugs and violence. But this book has an additional dimension: aging, and the changes it brings.

One of the black boys who had been there that day, Raymond Monroe, is now working at the VA Center at Walter Reed Hospital. Raymond works as a physical therapist, helping the veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have returned home in pieces. He admonishes one depressed veteran to get out and speak to the community, but the veteran demurs, saying “I’m not proud of everything I did.” Monroe answers him:

“Neither am I. … Look, Sergeant. You’re gonna realize something as you get older. Hopefully it’ll come to you quicker than it did to me. Life is long. Who you are now, the things you did, how you’re feeling, like your world is never gonna be as good as it was? None of that is going to matter as you move along. It only will if you let it. I’m not the person I was when I was young. … Let’s just say I had to walk a whole lotta miles to learn how much I’ve changed. Whatever you did before doesn’t matter. What matters now is how you make the turnaround. You’re gonna be all right.”

This book is all about turnarounds, and deadends. And fathers and sons, and understanding the causes of hate and violence. Some in this book are saved, and some are damned. And Pelecanos makes you care about all of them. He’s a darn good writer. ( )

This is THE book. I have always been a fan of George Pelecanos' but this is the book that people are not going to be able to stop talking about. It's more a story about a neighborhood and people dealing with the mistakes in their pasts than a crime novel. Great writing, amazing setting. This is a book that everyone will love. ( )