The Cut

George Pelecanos is one of the top mystery/crime writers in the business today. He's written over a dozen books, featuring various lead characters. I've previously read two of this books, the last being The Night Gardener. Now I've just finished The Cut, which introduces a new character, a private investigator named Spero Lucas.

As with many of Pelecanos' books, The Cut takes place in Washington, D.C., and is full of rich detail about the streets of our not-so-fair capital. "The Expedition was like a bus. No one in the city needed a vehicle this huge, but people wanted to own the biggest SUV on the block. That name, Expedition, it suggested adventure, a safari, the discovery of new worlds. Lewis and motherfucking Clark. But all Bernard ever saw behind the wheels of these beasts were fat brothers and sisters holding cell phones and white middle-aged fathers with beer guts and goatees. If they ever went off-road, it was an accident when they'd drunk too much. Highlander. Pathfinder. Expedition. To where, Wal-Mart?"

In particular, Pelecanos has an interest in the plight of black youth, many of whom have no other opportunities but crime. The central plot of this book involves two young black men who are working for a large-scale pot dealer, who is behind bars. He hires Lucas to find some packages of marijuana that have been absconded with (apparently a way of transporting drugs is to have them shipped by FedEx to an address where no one is home, and then the middle-men scoop them up). Lucas, a dashing and physically fit young man who saw action as a Marine in Iraq, takes the case, and requires his standard "cut": forty percent.

He will get involved with those two young operatives, you described this way: "They seemed tough enough, but neither of them were thugs, nor did they pretend to be. Lucas imagined they liked girls, fashion, cars, video games, sports except for hockey, and getting their heads up. They were typical young men who happened to make their living in the marijuana trade."

Lucas will also become involved with another black youth, Ernest, a shy boy who dreams of becoming a movie director. The boy is a witness to something that could get him killed, and Lucas will do anything to save him.

In addition to this somewhat sentimental but appropriate rendering of the black youth of D.C., Lucas himself is a product of an interesting home life. He is adopted into a Greek family, and has siblings of different races, including a brother, Leo, who is black and is Ernest's teacher.

If this seems a bit too socially conscious, make no mistake that The Cut is full of violence, and Lucas is no shrinking violet, dispatching several of the bad guys over the course of the book. The villains are nasty, and also include corrupt cops.

One thing that is kind of annoying, but Pelecanos is not the only crime writer who does it, is the over use of details in the humdrum activities of his hero's day. It's one thing to tell us what streets he is taking, but when he eats, do we need to know every course? Or the brand name of his clothing? This seems an over attention to detail that only increases the word count, without adding much to the characterization.

Still, The Cut is a fine thriller, and Pelecanos is a writer to be sought out by those who like the genre.