PowellsBooks.Blog
Authors, readers, critics, media − and booksellers.

Great crime fiction challenges us; not just our armchair detective skills, but our notions of justice, our assumptions of societal norms. The Turnaround is great crime fiction. Suspenseful, yes, almost painfully so, but not in a heart-stopping, breathless-action sort of way — the suspense and drama are more heart-stretching. I followed this story with a sense of dread, knowing no good could come from the inevitable showdown. And yet, George Pelecanos reveals himself to be a crime writer concerned not just with the evil in the heart of man, but the goodness that resides in spite of it.