Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Why Shaft was cool, 11 Jul 2008
You know that bloke you really hated at school, the one who was great looking, good at sports, funny, got all the girls, (including the one you had been secretly in love with for 3 years), AND hung out with the popular and beatiful crowd?
Well he's just written a book and guess what it's very cool, slick, street wise, funny and even moving in places.
The story watches the worlds of an eclectic crowd of 'hip dudes' collide in the last dying carefree days of the seventies set against the skyline of post race riot Washington DC.
We have a collection of out of towners looking for a quick score and a whole load of trouble, a couple of old school friends hitting their late twenties and looking for more meaning in life than their current headonistic life styles. An italian TV adict who wants to be Al Pacino and his weary business manager and a gang of Bikers.
All this is set to a cool 70's soundtrack, charactors don't just stick the hi-fi on they 'slide' a Hendrix 8 track cartride into the Pioneer. They don't just get in the car but 'drop into the bucket of a '73 Firebird' The book is packed with 70's reference points much relating to Black and drugs culture, the movies of the time (especially the Blaxsploitation films) and the generally morally eroded era of pre HIV America.
The book is highly readable though often violent and a little disturbing in very much a (and quite deliberately) Tarintinoesque way. It's a light weight though gritty throwaway kind of book. It can be finished in a couple of sittings without too much mental flexing and yet still leave you with a smile and a bit to think about.
I liked it.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
More plot, less violence please!, 23 Nov 2002
I was quite disappointed with this book, as I much enjoyed The Big Blowdown by the same author. He has real talent and style, but dilutes it in this novel with excessive graphic violence and tasteless characterisation. When you can write as well as Pelecanos, there's no need to overdo how bad some of his bad guys can be. We already get the picture. King Suckerman is set in late seventies Washington DC, where everyone did drugs and lived their lives to their own personal soundtrack. On almost every page, a character is depicted selecting or listening to some sort of music, be it Uriah Heep, Isaac Hayes, Led Zepplin or the Bee Gees. Initially, I found this a bit annoying, as if Pelecanos was desperate to show us what a wide and eclectic musical taste he has. Gradually though, it becomes a part of the narrative that you'd miss if it was dropped, and helps to give the novel a distinct flavour. The plot is straightforward, and it's the development of the characters that takes precedence. I left the book wanting to learn more about both them (those that survive!) and the world they inhabit.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tarantino.. eat your heart out !1, 26 April 2002
By A Customer
Fanatastic entertainment. Anyone who enjoyed Pulp Fiction should read this.. it's got the same reckless,knowing, funny, hip feel to it and is just a brilliant read. The first Pelecanos I read, Right as Rain was very, very good and now, after following up with this I'll be buying his entire back-catalogue. Pelecanos knows his music and is superb at depicting a sense of time and place and also excellent at friendship and relationships. Best read of the last 12 months for me. Buy it !
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