Soul Circus [Paperback]

With Soul Circus, George Pelecanos brings his sequence of novels about black Washington private eye Derek Strange and his partner Terry Quinn to the late 1990s and some sort of closure. The city they grew up in has changed but, as Strange continues to point out to the angry white Quinn, not as much as all that. It is just that asking the wrong question in the wrong tone of voice can be more dangerous when young men have guns and drug-fuelled short tempers. Young gangsters such as Strange's client Oliver have poisoned their own communities with heroin, crack and an equally addictive cult of machismo. Strange's work for Oliver is sparked by opposition to the death penalty, even for a creature like him.

Even more than usual with Pelecanos, this is a thriller with an agenda--we watch close-up how the availability of semi-legal guns becomes the occasion for a sequence of bloody deaths. This is an intelligent, wistful book that tries to understand violence as much as to condemn it. Strange has become one of the most interesting detectives in modern crime fiction simply because his conscience, his sense of history and his love of sweet soul music are so tightly intertwined. --Roz Kaveney --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Pelecanos once again exposes the rotten underbelly of Washington's streets, ravaged by the crime caused by drug gangs... Pelecanos masterfully shows up 'bling-bling' as the ignored, indignant soul displaying itself in a theatre of violence.' (THE OBSERVER )

'Pelecanos expertly marshals a cast of hundreds ... this is contemporary American crime fiction at its best.' (DAILY TELEGRAPH )

'Hard-boiled, latter-day, noir detective fiction doesn't get much better than this.' (HOT STARS )

'The third of Pelecanos's Strange and Quinn novels effectively combines noir thriller with urban realism.' (SUNDAY TIMES )

'Strange is an attractively quixotic figure and one of the best serial heroes around, but what really lifts Pelecanos into the first rant is his understanding of the criminal mind and his grasp of the realities of life on the wrong side of the tracks.' (MAIL ON SUNDAY )

'There's a relentless, hard-edged grimness permeating this highly effective crime thriller.' (GOOD BOOK GUIDE )

'Pelecanos once again exposes the rotten underbelly of Washington's streets, ravaged by the crime caused by drug gangs... Pelecanos masterfully shows up 'bling-bling' as the ignored, indignant soul displaying itself in a theatre of violence.' -- THE OBSERVER 'Pelecanos expertly marshals a cast of hundreds ... this is contemporary American crime fiction at its best.' -- DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Hard-boiled, latter-day, noir detective fiction doesn't get much better than this.' -- HOT STARS 'The third of Pelecanos's Strange and Quinn novels effectively combines noir thriller with urban realism.' -- SUNDAY TIMES 'There's a relentless, hard-edged grimness permeating this highly effective crime thriller.' -- GOOD BOOK GUIDE

'The third of Pelecanos's Strange and Quinn novels effectively combines noir thriller with urban realism.'

'There's a relentless, hard-edged grimness permeating this highly effective crime thriller.'

'Pelecanos once again exposes the rotten underbelly of Washington's streets, ravaged by the crime caused by drug gangs... Pelecanos masterfully shows up 'bling-bling' as the ignored, indignant soul displaying itself in a theatre of violence.'

'Strange is an attractively quixotic figure and one of the best serial heroes around, but what really lifts Pelecanos into the first rant is his understanding of the criminal mind and his grasp of the realities of life on the wrong side of the tracks.'

Private Investigator Derek Strange and his partner, Terry Quinn, are running a PI business in the seedy underbelly of Washington DC are approached by a young man asking them to find his girlfriend who has gone missing. And so Strange and Quinn find her. Just another day? Not quite. In the grimy underworld inhabited by Strange, nothing is that simple. For Strange and Quinn's efforts have led to a young mother being brutally murdered - a devastating discovery that causes them both to question the morality by which they live. And yet at the same time they need to continue the search for another missing girl, a teenage runaway who shows up in a porn video. And who hasn't been seen since. Bleak, gritty and moving, SOUL CIRCUS superbly brings to life the devastating story of life and death in Washington's black ghettos.

George Pelecanos lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and children. He also manages Circle Films, an independent production company responsible for such films as the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink. Richard Allen: As a veteran stage actor, Richard Allen works on both coats of the US, from originating the role of Booker T. Washington in the hit musical, Ragtime, to his recent Los Angeles Drama Critics nominated work in Play On! An acclaimed narrator of audiobooks, he resides in New York City.