Shoedog

From early in the Pelecanos oeuvre comes this classic noir story of a drifter, a setup, and a double cross. Dan Woren's resonant voice ranges from seductive to menacing as the drifter, Constantine, makes all the wrong choices. Despite being warned off by his new partners, Constantine is drawn like a moth to flame to an upcoming heist and to the boss's much younger lover. The story is filled with references to muscle cars and '70's music as the inevitable double cross unfolds, followed by Constantine's retribution. One scene mars the otherwise excellent performance with several stereotypical characterizations. But overall, Woren plays the staccato sentence rhythms to their advantage, driving the story to its resolution. M.L.R. (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

May 2, 1994
Sixty years ago, in The Postman Always Rings Twice , James M. Cain established the drifter as a dark knight of American crime fiction. Pelecanos ( Nick's Trip ) continues that tradition here, following Constantine, an enigmatic wanderer who falls into a den of thieves and disproves the adage that there's no honor among them. Hitchhiking south from Maryland to nowhere, Constantine takes a lift from an old man who stops at a country mansion to get some money. There Grimes, an equally old but wealthy man who organizes heists as a hobby, invites the pair to help rob two D.C. liquor stores. Swayed by ``the Beat'' (``the Beat was knowing that he was into something wrong, and the fear of it, and the point when the fear was no longer there. It was a hot buzz . . .''), Constantine signs on as a driver. He and his colleagues, who are all being blackmailed by Grimes, drink, plan and pick up women, with Constantine dangerously zeroing in on Grimes's young lover (``there was a freshness in her like newly printed money''). The robberies themselves, marred by a doublecross, go down fast and bad, leading Constantine to avenge his fallen partners by taking justice into his own hands. All sinners, none saints, the small-time hoods in this authentic world are crisply limned here in their fallible humanity.