Synopses & Reviews
An ex-con on a leash, Lorenzo Brown works a straight job for the Humane Society saving D.C.'s motley dogs. Wearing a foolish uniform, dropping an occasional urine sample, and meeting with his parole officer, Rachel Lopez, is a small price to pay for staying clean.
But while Lorenzo fights indifference and cruelty on battered streets, his beautiful P.O. is waging her own secret war against the demons of sex and booze. Now, as Lorenzo's best friend struggles to hold on to his drug kingdom and a violent kid spins out of control, Lorenzo and Rachel will be pushed onto a tragic stage as two people who could save each other's lives...
Review
"Pelecanos continues to expand the parameters of crime fiction....Though set on the same streets as Pelecanos' earlier books, this novel works on a smaller scale....It's not a view we see much in genre fiction, making it all the more welcome." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"[An] unsparing stand-alone tale....The dog-eat-dog metaphor...provides a brutal, tender new way for Pelecanos to get at his great subject: the miraculous survival of lilies among the toxic weeds of the Nation's Capital." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[Drama City] works, for exactly the same reason The Wire...works, by turning the day-to-day struggles of working people in American cities into a melancholy, rich poetry. (Grade: A-)" Entertainment Weekly
Review
"The climax is likely to surprise even the most prescient of readers....[A] writer of enormous talent, whose work we've come to anticipate with great excitement. So far, Pelecanos has given us no reason to expect anything less than a terrific ride." Chicago Sun-Times
Review
"In its own way, Drama City is Shakespearean in substance power, violence, sex and, yes, nobility of a sort if not in style. There's plenty of reality here, but even the groundlings might not have objected to a more elevated tone." Dallas-Ft. Worth Star Telegram
Synopsis
In this blistering and soulful novel of the D.C. underworld, an ex-con finds himself caught between the light and the dark sides of the street after a malevolent young killer spoils his chances to stay straight.
Synopsis
Lorenzo Brown loves his work. In his job as an officer for the Humane Society, he cruises the city streets, looking for dogs that are being mistreated - underfed, unclean, trained to kill. He takes pride in making their lives better. And that pride helps Lorenzo resist the pull of easier money doing the kind of work that got him a recent prison bid.
Rachel Lopez loves her work, too. By day she is a parole officer, helping people - Lorenzo Brown among them - along a path to responsibility and advancement. At night she heads for the city's hotel bars, where she can always find a man who will let her act out her damage. She loses herself in sex and drink and more. But Rachel's nights are taking a toll on her days. Lorenzo knows the signs. The trouble is, he truly needs her right now. There's an eruption coming in the streets he left behind, the kind of territorial war that takes down everyone even near it. Lorenzo needs every shred of support he can get to keep from being sucked back into that battleground. He reaches out to Rachel - but she may be too far gone to help either of them.
Writing with the grace and force that have earned him praise as the poet laureate of the crime world, George Pelecanos has created a novel about two scarred and fallible people who must navigate one of life's most brutal passages. It is an unforgettable, moving, even shocking story that will leave no reader unchanged.
About the Author
George Pelecanos is the author of several highly praised and bestselling novels, including The Cut, What It Was, The Way Home, The Turnaround, and The Night Gardener. He is also an independent-film producer, an essayist, and the recipient of numerous international writing awards. He was a producer and Emmy-nominated writer for The Wire and currently writes for the acclaimed HBO series Treme. He lives in Maryland.