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In the summer of 1976, the nation's capital is gearing up for the Bicentennial. Captain Beefheart's on the eight-track, and the hot new film "King Suckerman" has everyone talking. Two knockaround guys named Clay and Karras are out looking for trouble when they stumble onto a drug deal gone bad and end up with a pile of money that isn't theirs. When the well-armed dealer starts spilling blood to get to the cash, Clay and Karras must take a stand, go straight, and get justice--or maybe just show more sweet revenge. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Enjoyed "The Big Blowdown" so moved on to this 70's set second in the series immediately. Especially attracted by "Pelecanos's usual meticulous details of pop life..." (Publisher's Weekly). This was my era and George is of my generation, or in the ball-park of it at least. Well - "Clay nodded, then found his head moving to the gravelly Bill Lordan vocals, Trower's blues guitar working against a thick slab of bass." The problem here is that it is the bassist, James Dewer, who sings; Bill Lordan is simply the drummer. So? Meticulous, or just of the same age but creating a different universe? Will this irritation spoil the book - I doubt it. But I'll ignore the meticulous detail of the background because my faith in it's validity has been show more dented. show less
Fun book with a few too many wasted details. Pelecanos does the 70s up perfectly but spends a bit too much time on things that never end up mattering in my opinion.
Perhaps, now that I'm learning this is in fact part of a larger series, these details and character arcs come back in or source from other books...
Perhaps, now that I'm learning this is in fact part of a larger series, these details and character arcs come back in or source from other books...
The second in the Washington DC series. This one is set in the 1970s and is my favourite time period covered by the series. It is full of rich details of music, films, clothes and television shows from the era which add to the griping crime story and interesting characters.
Another cracker from George Pelecanos - for me a modern day Steinbeck.
KING SUCKERMAN kicks off my favorite trilogy of George Pelecanos novels. It also reintroduces Dimitri Karras, who we met as a child in THE BIG BLOWDOWN.
Steengoede grootstads-noir.
Sep 24, 2009Dutch
in genre
Feb 4, 2010Dutch
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Author Information
45+ Works 11,785 Members
George P. Pelecanos was born in Washington, D.C. on February 18, 1957. Before becoming an author, he worked as a line cook, dishwasher, bartender, and woman's shoe salesman. His first novel, A Firing Offense, was published in 1992. His other books include Nick's Trip, Shoedog, King Suckerman, Right as Rain, Hard Revolution, Drama City, The Night show more Gardener, and What It Was. He has received numerous awards including the Raymond Chandler award in Italy, the Falcon award in Japan, and the Grand Prix Du Roman Noir in France. Hell to Pay and Soul Circus were awarded the 2003 and 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. He has served as producer on the feature films Caught (1996), Whatever (1998) and BlackMale (1999). He was a producer, writer, and story editor for the HBO series, The Wire, which won the Peabody Award and the AFI Award. He was also a writer and co-producer on the HBO World War II miniseries The Pacific and an executive producer and writer on the HBO series Treme. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Series
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1997
- People/Characters
- Dimitri Karras; Marcus Clay; Nick Stefanos; Clarence Tate
- Important places
- Washington, D.C., USA
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 437
- Popularity
- 70,013
- Reviews
- 7
- Rating
- (3.83)
- Languages
- 6 — Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 22
- ASINs
- 5
