Book Details
| Title: | Hard Revolution | |
| Author: | George Pelecanos | |
| Times Read: | 1 | |
| Last Read: | 08.13.06 |
Other Books Read By This Author (16)
- The Big Blowdown
- The Cut
- Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go
- Drama City
- A Firing Offense
- King Suckerman
- The Man Who Came Uptown
- The Martini Shot
- Nick's Trip
- The Night Gardener
- Shame the Devil
- Shoedog
- The Sweet Forever
- The Turnaround
- The Way Home
- What it Was
| Date Read | Note |
| 08.13.06 | Catching up on the last book of the Derek Strange series before starting his new one... I really liked Drama City... think he's getting better with each book... but this one was period with Strange as a rookie cop and as a 12 year old for the first 80 or so pages... I should've known time period wouldn't change Pelecanos' style or readability - it's just a good a read as any others of his - but since he places it in Spring 1968 and calls the book Hard Revolution, I can't help but know right off the bat that the MLK riots will factor in somehow. The problem comes when the riots don't start until the last 40 pages or so... so the book definitely feels like it has 10 or 15 more pages to go. it ends quite abruptly. Still, nice tie-in with the baby boy growing up to be the big gangster guy Strange has to work for in the previous book... Mostly though I'm a bit mixed on the whole quartet of books because Derek Strange is such a romanticised name and the books are very very realistic. It was the most distracting here when he was a kid with his father and brother (Darius, Dennis).. sounds like a family of superheros or something living in NE DC. I guess when compared to Harry Bosch though, Derek Strange isn't as weirdo as it could be... So this is how the Strange stories end, with the beginning. I like how Pelecanos isn't afraid to move on... He keeps the same universe, careful to note people and places that have played big roles in previous books, but doesn't spend a whole career on one protagonist that's really just him anyway. All of his characters, including the one you are supposed to follow, seem real and fleshed out. So after his new one, the next books of his that I'm gonna read are his first, dealing with Nick Stefanos. I have a hunch that Nick is much closer to George than Derek is, so we'll see. Maybe he started out in that Kinsey Malone Kay Scarpetta mode and grew above. |
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