Shoedog - Softcover

Pelecanos, George

3.63

1,157 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446610747 ISBN 13: 9780446610742

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2004

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From "the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world" ("Esquire") comes this powerful early novel, now available in paperback for the first time--the noirish story of how a Washington, D.C., liquor store heist shows a drifter named Constantine what it means to be a shoedog. Martin's Press.

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About the Author:

George Pelecanos is the author of several highly praised and bestselling novels, including The Cut, What It Was, The Way Home, The Turnaround, and The Night Gardener. He is also an independent-film producer, an essayist, and the recipient of numerous international writing awards. He was a producer and Emmy-nominated writer for The Wire and currently writes for the acclaimed HBO series Treme. He lives in Maryland.

From Publishers Weekly:

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.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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