Reviews

A serial killer seems to have returned to the District of Columbia after a 20-year hiatus. Two ex-cops, who worked the case back in the day, still obsess over it and carry on an investigation parallel to the police's. The case hits especially close to home for Detective Gus Ramone, as his adolescent son knew the victim. Gus has his own issues, balancing work and family, keeping his son on the straight and narrow in a society that thwarts him at every opportunity. Pelecanos continues his winning streak in a tough novel that's more a whodunit than he usually attempts, though it features his trademark music references and strong sense of place. If the occasional subplot seems designed solely to ramp up the violence, his listeners are used to that and won't mind. Richard M. Davidson delivers a reading so macho as to border on parody; he absolutely snarls Chapter 28. A stong candidate for any library collection.-John Hiett, Iowa City P.L. Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

With a soft, unemotional delivery worthy of the late Jack Webb, Pelecanos puts a cool, effectively dramatic vocal sheen on a novel that is arguably among his best. The initially straightforward police procedural quickly evolves into an emotionally complex tale of three Washington, D.C., cops who in 1985 were on the trail of a serial killer known as the Night Gardener. The killer stopped before he was caught. Twenty years later, that lack of closure has its effect on the trio. Gus Ramone, now a member of the department's Violent Crime Branch, is assigned a murder case that suggests the Gardener has returned. His former rookie partner, Dan "Doc" Holiday, booted from the force for impropriety, finds key information about the killing and takes it to T.C. Cook, the original detective on the case, who, in spite of retirement and a recent stroke, continues to hope the Gardener can be harvested. Using subtle changes in pitch and pace, Pelecanos suggests Ramone's low-key intensity, Holiday's edgy resentment and Cook's weary but dogged dedication as the three men move toward a conclusion that is strikingly original and far from the predictably neat wrapup of less ambitious works. Simultaneous release with the Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, June 19). (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.