Hell To Pay

Slow to start for a crime novel, Pelecanos takes a hefty chunk of the book to create the atmosphere of the seedy run-down neighbourhoods in Washington DC, but the first major crime is a long time coming. The story meanders through the fecklessness of American life, the strip joints, the garbage, dog fights, the grimy cultureless vacuum where the underclasses gamble, take drugs and cling on to a perilous edge between poverty and destitution. Living on the fringe of crime in the ghetto is a way of life. And in this world move Derek Strange and Terry Quinn - private investigators. Strange, a retired cop in his 50s, is a neighbourhood P.I. he works his patch and acts as a football coach in an attempt to keep minors off the streets where they are preyed upon by waiting gangs. His work to date has been mostly surveillance checking out the ID of a young man who is going to marry the daughter of a friend, videoing prostitutes being harassed by cops. Then he and another P.I, Terry Quinn, are hired to find a runaway 14-year-old white girl who is now working as a prostitute. Routine, they think, until they come up against the pimp of all pimps, Worldwide Wilson, a suave and brutal enemy they have to use all their resources to defeat. When an innocent minor is shot, the game turns even uglier. The kid was one of Stranges football team and he now has a personal motive to find the killers. After its leisurely start, this is a compelling thriller handled with powerful psychological acuity. (Kirkus UK)