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Soul Circus by George P. Pelecanos
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George Pelecanos's Washington, D.C., is a place rife with high-living drug dealers, easily obtained guns, and a generation depleted by ignorance, excessive machismo, and misplaced trust in the equalizing power of violence. Yet PI Derek Strange "did love D.C.," as Pelecanos acknowledges in Soul Circus, his third novel (after Right as Rain and Hell to Pay) to feature this mid-50s black detective and his younger white partner, Terry Quinn. Strange's optimism may be running at even higher gear than normal here, following his marriage to his longtime secretary, Janine Baker, and his determination to be a good stepfather to her son. Picking up where Hell to Pay left off, we find Strange working in Soul Circus on behalf of Granville Oliver, a manipulative black mobster charged with murder and racketeering, who faces the death penalty. To help his client knock that sentence down to life imprisonment, Strange will have to find a nail salon worker named Devra Stokes, who used to be the girlfriend of Phillip Wood, a former associate of Oliver's and now the prosecution's chief witness against him. Stokes had sworn out an abuse complaint against Wood, and might testify that he was behind at least one of the killings Oliver is said to have planned. But, fearing for her own safety and that of her young son, she wants no part of Oliver's defense. Meanwhile, Quinn--against his better judgment--helps a homely, unpredictable gangsta-wannabe, Mario "Twigs" Durham, locate his girlfriend, who supposedly went missing, but in fact skipped out with his drug stash. Even as the threads of this yarn come together amid a deadly gang conflict, Pelecanos stays focused on his characters--not only his intriguingly troubled sleuths, but also a deftly nuanced cop-turned-gun dealer, Ulysses Foreman. Buttressed by Pelecanos's street-slangy prose, Soul Circus delivers an un-blindered perspective on urban life (and death) that manages to be both frightening and hopeful. Not so unlike the city in which it's set. --J. Kingston Pierce
Reader Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Life in the raw, July 29, 2003
Reviewer:
Larry Scantlebury
from Ypsilanti, MI United States
I am continually puzzled at reading other reader's "lists," or perusing the 'mystery/drama' section of Borders or Waldenbooks, to see Burke and Crais and Lehane visibly displayed and Pelecanos, well, at least he's on the shelves. You like the dark mystery, the true mystery noir? You must read Pelecanos. Stuck, sentenced, incarcerated or living there by choice, Derek Strange, black, muscular, aging gracefull, wise, and Terry Quinn, younger, white, more hot blooded, less introspective, prowl the streets of Washington and Maryland righting toppled lives where they can and seeking retribution when possible. They fail at the former from time to time but rarely at the latter. When Derek signs on to help the Defense team for a self admitted Black crime king, Quinn goes along, admittedly with some reluctance. But Derek explains that he feels he must do something to stand up against the government from snuffing out the lives of black men when it chooses to. He defends, he tells Quinn, not Granville Oliver the mobster but Granville Oliver the Black Man whom the Feds have targeted for execution. It's a tricky bit of writing but Pelecanos pulls it off. Franklin wrote about the signatories of the Declaration of Independance, "We had better hang together or we will certainly hang separately." And that is the sum total of Pelecanos' mysteries. They're good; they're harsh; they're even disturbing. But all along there is that call to 'hanging together.' We have to get along. Some are offended by Pelecanos' tendency to preach. But I don't see it that way. He just uses the forum of writing excellent mysteries to point out a few painful truths. Coughlin and Burke do the same thing regarding alcohol. Parker does it with relationships. Quinn and Strange find enough evidence to support the Defense's strategy to reduce the Oliver sentencing from the injection to life. You'll have to read the book to discover if it works or not. Along the way they find a few lives of children they can save and lose a few others. Great stuff. If I have a gripe, it could be too much rock 'n roll memorablia. Too many 'muscle' cars from the '70's. Too much about sports. Of course, that's what I like so maybe it is a good addition. 5 stars. Could be 6.
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