The Turnaround » (Bargain)

A devotee of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction, George P. Pelecanos has honed his street-smart style with a series of detective thrillers all set in the seamier corners of the D.C./Maryland/Virginia triangle.

New York Times bestselling author George Pelecanos, "perhaps the greatest living American crime wtiter" (Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly), has written his most gripping novel yet.

On a hot summer afternoon in 1972, three teenagers drove into an unfamiliar neighborhood and changed six lives forever.

Thirty-five years after that harrowing day, one survivorreaches out to another, opening a door that could lead to salvation. But another survivor has a different plan a burning need for retribution and seizes the moment to claim reparation in any form he can find.

The Turnaround takes us on a journey from the rock-and-soul streets of the '70s to the changing neighborhoods of D.C. today, from the diners and auto garages of the city to the inside of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the first stop for wounded men and women on their way home from war. A story of fathers and sons, wives and husbands, loss, victory, and violent redemption, The Turnaround is another compelling, highly charged novel from George Pelecanos, and proves why "there's so much praise for his fiction that it's practically become a currency" (Free Lance-Star).

The Barnes & Noble Review

"MILLIONS ARE TO BE GRABBED OUT HERE AND YOUR ONLY COMPETITION IS IDIOTS,'' Herman Mankiewicz telegrammed Ben Hecht in 1927 by way of luring him to Hollywood. "DON'T LET THIS GET AROUND."

Now that George Pelecanos has made his score writing for HBO's The Wire -- and helped turn out some great television scripts along the way -- it's good to know that he's getting back to his first calling. On a good day, the author of Hell to Pay and Soul Circus is one of the sharpest writers in America -- perhaps the sharpest. And his social passions deepen his reach beyond the cynicism that the underworld milieu of an Elmore Leonard or George Higgins, however expertly rendered, can sometimes reflect all too accurately. A romantic whose characters can quote dialogue from obscure westerns without sounding like Tarantino clones, Pelecanos is devoted to chronicling urban America, the struggle bound up with becoming a good man and why it's worth dedicating yourself to that struggle.