Pelecanos Electronic Exhibit

Pelecanos Electronic Exhibit

The Nick Stefanos mysteries

Pelecanos' series character Nick Stefanos is a licensed private investigator who tends bar at the Spot in Southeast Washington, D.C. to make ends meet. He seldom picks up trade by conventional means, finding himself working for friends, or because he's haunted by private demons. These novels are swiftly plotted, with intricacies to rival Hammett or Raymond Chandler, and are filled with black humor, occasionally graphic violence, and allusions to local sites and culture that are a delight for local Washingtonians. Like most conventional p.i. literature they are first-person narratives, and as such are character studies as much as narrative fiction. The narrator, Nick Stefanos, is a complex character, capable of great love, but who most often finds himself alone and embittered, and troubled by his own self-destructive tendencies.

All of these novels have achieved critical acclaim and a cult following. Originally printed in small numbers, antiquarian book dealers are now commonly asking upwards of $100 for the first two books in this series.

Shoedog (1994)

Pelecanos' third novel was a non-series crime novel that found its inspiration in the great pulp fiction of the 1950s. It tells the story of Constantine, a young drifter hitchhiking on the lonely backroads of Maryland, who is picked up by an older man, Polk. The two develop a friendship, and Constantine accompanies Polk to a hideout in the Washington, D.C. suburbs where Polk tries to recover his share of some robbery money. The story unfolds from there in a series of violent episodes. Again, the novel received very good reviews.

The Big Blowdown (1996)

This novel by George P. Pelecanos follows a group of young men from the ethnic neighborhoods of Washington, D.C. during the early 1950s. The novel, again full of vivid and authentic detail of common life in Washington, depicts organized crime preying on immigrants with protection scams, and the resulting violence when some refused to succumb to threats and blackmail. Mostly, however, it is a novel about the meaning of friendship and the cost of honor. Easily Pelecanos' most ambitious novel to date, it received very favorable advance praise.

King Suckerman (1997)