'Drama City'
By: George Pelecanos
(Hardcover / 304 Pages / Little, Brown & Company / ISBN: 0316608211 / $24.95)
Description: Lorenzo Brown just wants to stay straight. After eight years in prison on a drug charge, he's come "uptown"-back to the Washington, DC neighborhood where he grew up, where his old cohorts still work their corners and their angles, trying to get ahead and stay alive. But Lorenzo's had enough of the life: Now he has a job as a Humane Society officer, policing animal abusers and protecting the abused. In the dangerous streets he used to menace, Lorenzo plays a part in maintain- ing order-and it's a role reversal some of his former friends don't appreciate.
Verdict: I had never read George Pelecanos but due to a lack of interns in the office (due to the flu bug!) I was handed a copy of his latest 'Drama City'. Settling in with it that very same evening, I quickly noted that I had been a fool for not having read any of Pelecanos' work before! Reading this book is like watching a movie: fast-paced action, pitch-perfect dialogue, characters so real you feel you're riding next to them in the car. I read it over three bedroom nights and literally found myself racing to the ending. It's the first thriller I've ever read that was a total page-turner ... but also made me cry! That's how much I cared about these characters and their lives.
Reviewed by Taylor Harper
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