| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
"The tap tap tap of the blade on the glass. His dealer called that sound the mating call of the 80s." In mid-80s Washington DC, the streets are awash with cocaine, ignored by corrupt cops and capitalised upon by teenage drug gangs. For Marcus Clay and Dmitri Karras, owners of a record store deep in the ghettos and caught in the middle, something must be done. But, are good intentions worth dying for?
Pelecanos effortlessly proves here that he is masterful at playing with his readers perceptions: midway through the book, two 11-year-old boys are brutally murdered by a drug lord. A reaction of anger and remorse? Not when you are confronted with the realisation that they would have ended up like their killer. In Karras, Pelecanos portrays an acute observation of slavery to cocaine, swinging from black depression to the insane frenzies of a high: "He loved to play with the stuff: sometimes he though the ritual was the best part of doing coke."
The Sweet Forever finds George P Pelecanos at the peak of his game--hitting his literary target with unerring accuracy. With the exceptional detail, emotional power and precise characterisation nurtured in his prior works, the reader is inexorably drawn to the raw odyssey of an urban community teetering on the edge of total breakdown. --Danny Graydon --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
The Times
‘A dirty, human slice of raw American life... Pelecanos has joined James Lee Burke and Lawrence Block at the high table of contemporary crime greats’
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
American novels have an ear for conversation that British ones lack - as converted to celluloid by Tarantino. If George V Higgins is the master then Pelicanos is coming up fast. Set in Washington DC in 1986 - a city not facing up to a rising tide of drugs - this novel tells the tale of one block. A Vietnam vet has opened his 4th record store in a downtown area where drug peddlers command the respect given a generation before to the police. One car crash and a foolish move by a white boy out of his territory sparks off a tale that takes in the BIG 3 subjects - sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll - with plenty of violence to boot. At times the 80's references seem as forced as in "The Wedding Singer" - but the flow of the voices and the spiralling plot demand your attention.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It's 1986 and things are out of control on the streets of Washington DC. Bent cops are on the take, drug dealers and crooks run the streets, but one man - record store owner Marcus Clay - takes a stand against the decline. As a synopsis, it could have been done hundreds of times before, but Pelecanos brings a fresh slant to things, and writes well into the bargain.
The Sweet Forever reads like a violent morality play for our times; a kind of justice prevails at the book's bloody conclusion, but the author's biggest triumph is this: you actually take an interest in the low-life characters he writes about throughout the story. A rare quality in fiction of this type.
The Sweet Forever reads like a violent morality play for our times; a kind of justice prevails at the book's bloody conclusion, but the author's biggest triumph is this: you actually take an interest in the low-life characters he writes about throughout the story. A rare quality in fiction of this type.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the sequel to King Suckerman, is the third novel in Pelecanos' DC Quartet, and is as good as both the preceding novels. Yet again it features the unlikely 'salt and pepper' pairing of Marcus Clay and Dmitri Karras, and their attempts to keep their heads above the rising tide of drugs, gang violence and police corruption in Washington DC. Nick Stefanos, from Pelecanos' earlier work, puts in an appearance too.
Much of the action takes place on Washington's drug-dealing corners, amongst kids who are barely in their teens, and anyone who is a fan of 'The Wire' will find themselves on familiar territory.
Two main criticisms: when the violence finally erupts, it is sometimes ridiculously OTT, with jets of blood and chunks of flesh sprayed liberally across the pages; and the topical references (including lengthy basketball commentaries) are rather clumsily shoe-horned into the text. If you're not au fait with american basketball legends of the 1980s, you'll need to consult wikipedia to truly appreciate the tragedy which is hinted at on the very last page of the book, and its particular relevance to Dmitri Karras.
Much of the action takes place on Washington's drug-dealing corners, amongst kids who are barely in their teens, and anyone who is a fan of 'The Wire' will find themselves on familiar territory.
Two main criticisms: when the violence finally erupts, it is sometimes ridiculously OTT, with jets of blood and chunks of flesh sprayed liberally across the pages; and the topical references (including lengthy basketball commentaries) are rather clumsily shoe-horned into the text. If you're not au fait with american basketball legends of the 1980s, you'll need to consult wikipedia to truly appreciate the tragedy which is hinted at on the very last page of the book, and its particular relevance to Dmitri Karras.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
