The Cut

Starred review from May 30, 2011
Pelecanos's excellent first in a new crime series introduces Spero Lucas, a 29-year-old Iraq War vet who does investigative work for a Washington, D.C., defense attorney. Anwan Hawkins, an imprisoned marijuana dealer who has taken notice of Lucas's cool, efficient work, offers him a cut of the proceeds if he can recover several large stolen marijuana shipments. Though Lucas is in some ways an idealistic young man, he's no innocent. He accepts Hawkins's deal, a choice that nearly destroys him. As the body count mounts, Pelecanos (The Night Gardener) provides glimpses of Lucas's multiracial family, from his adoptive parents to his three siblings, two of whom are African-American. In the end, the group of hardened criminals responsible for the theft, including a former D.C. cop, set their sights on Lucas and those close to him. Both vital and timely, this remarkable novel also connects D.C.'s past and present as only Pelecanos does. Readers will want to see a lot more of Lucas.

June 1, 2011

Pelecanos' newest hero walks the mean streets of the Nation's Capital with all the piercing hopes and fears and personal baggage of the others (The Way Home, 2009, etc.).

Jailed drug dealer Anwan Hawkins, pleased with the way Spero Lucas' brisk investigative work for attorney Tom Petersen gets his teenaged son David sprung on charges of car theft and worse, asks him to take on a private recovery job. The item in question is three shoeboxes of marijuana pinched from three D.C. doorsteps where Hawkins had asked FedEx to deliver them on the assumption that his couriers would beat the absent homeowners to the pickup. The finder's fee is 40 percent. The gig smells rotten, but no more rotten than most of what Lucas has done since his stint with the Marines in Iraq. The couriers, Tavon Lynch and Edwin Davis, have nothing to tell Lucas. Nor do most of the neighbors who might have seen who swiped the merchandise. His only hope is Ernest Lindsay, a potential witness who's a student in Lucas' brother Leo's English class at Cardozo High. But Lucas is reluctant to involve Ernest in a case that promises the involvement of bent police officers and hired killers, especially after somebody pops the two couriers. It's obvious to the reader, if not to Lucas, who pulled the trigger, but not why. And before Lucas learns that, he'll have to confront the exceptional difficulty of acting the white knight in a world in which, as a deeply compromised cop reminds him, "we all got dirt on us."

Another tough, heart-rending odyssey through a war zone in which every denizen has the potential to be both hero and villain.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 15, 2011

Home from Iraq, Spero Lucas has been handling investigations for a defense attorney, specializing in stolen property. When a big-time crime boss asks him to find out who's been pilfering from his operation, Spero accepts--and gets in over his head. Pelecanos introduces a new hero in a new series of interest to all thriller fans.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2011
Pelecanos last few stand-alone novels have been more about working-class lives in Washington, D.C., than about the crime and criminals that so often surround those lives. This time, though, hes back in the wheelhouse of his early work, with the first novel in what will be a series about Spero Lucas, an Iraqi War vet and a young man with appetites, who has carved for himself a Travis McGeelike career of recovering stolen property, from which he takes a 40 percent cut. This time hes working for a marijuana dealer whose deliveries are disappearing before the packages can be opened. Spero wouldnt work for a heroin dealer, but he has no beef with weed, so takes the gig. Before long, though, hes uncovered a labyrinth of betrayal and counterbetrayal that could endanger people he cares about deeply. Pelecanos characters often speak of their love of classic westerns, and there have been more than a few showdowns at the O.K. Corral in his best work. We can feel another one coming here, too, as Spero methodically oils guns and lays plans for the inevitable confrontation. His blood ticked electric through his veins. The feeling was familiar and right. Yes, indeed. Familar and right for Spero and also for Pelecanos fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)