The Night Gardener

A pervert with a taste for palindromes is murdering teens with names like Eve and Asa. At night he dumps their violated bodies in public gardens. George Pelecanos has a melodious tough-guy voice. His prose is witty with slang. The cops talk cop, the kids talk ghetto. And so this book is a pleasure to hear. The writer/narrator, however, does not try to give us different accents for different players. This might not have been a problem in a full-length recording. In an abridgment that includes two time periods and features a large cast, the thread is easily lost. But then it all sounds so good, you don't mind listening to it again. And again. B.H.C. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Starred review from June 19, 2006
Pelecanos (Drama City
) delivers a dignified, character-driven epic that succeeds as both literary novel and page-turner. In 1985, the body of a 14-year-old girl turns up in a Washington, D.C., park, the latest in a series of murders by a killer the media dub "The Night Gardener." T.C. Cook, the aging detective on the case, works with a quiet, almost monomaniacal, focus. Also involved are two young uniformed cops, Gus Ramone, who's diligent, conscientious and unimpressed by heroics, and Dan "Doc" Holiday, an adrenaline junkie who's decidedly less straight. Fast forward 20 years. Detective Ramone, now married with kids of his own, investigates the murder of one of his teenage son's friends. The homicide closely resembles the earlier unsolved Night Gardener murders. Holiday, now an alcoholic chauffeur and bodyguard, follows the case on his own and tracks down Cook, long retired but still obsessed with the original murders. While the three work together toward a suspenseful ending, Pelecanos emphasizes the fallacy of "solving" a murder and explores the ripple effects of violent crime on society.