Hell to Pay

Rating:
Summary: Pay any price for this stunning book.
Review: Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, the salt and pepper detective team first introduced in "Right as Rain" (2000), are back in another stellar mystery from one of the very best writers of contemporary fiction. Forget about the milquetoast scribblers who pop up on Oprah; authors like Pelecanos are where the quality really is.

In the hands of a less-skilled writer, this unlikely duo would seem forced and false, an interracial pair thrown together because it's contemporary and PC. Pelecanos couldn't care less about that, though. Strange and Quinn are together because it works; their skills and personalities not only complement each other, their pairing allows them to access both sides of D.C.'s color divide. Even more than that, these two very different men have gradually, reluctantly formed a real friendship.

Pelecanos does so many things well in his books. The action, the suspense, the dialogue are all breathtakingly sharp. He even provides the soundtrack to his story, music selected to demonstrate his characters moods and attitudes.

It's amazing to me that Pelecanos isn't a bigger name in the mystery field than he is. Maybe his work is too dark or too gritty for the mainstream audience. It certainly is not the result of a lack of quality. You will find few better than him.

Reviewed by David Montgomery, MysteryInkOnline.com

Rating:
Summary: Powerful
Review: Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, who were introduced to us in Right As Rain, return for a second gruelling case that once again takes them (and us) through the sleazy, dangerous backstreets of Washington DC.

Strange is a middle aged black private investigator who is essentially a good man who has to deal with all manner of low-lifes, and consequently is forced to do things that weigh heavily on his mind. Hell To Pay focuses on Strange's devotion to the black youth living in the projects of Washington. He is determined to give them every possible chance to make something of themselves by building self-esteem and confidence.

Furthering the youth theme and, in a way, counterbalancing all his good work, are the two cases that Strange and Quinn work on throughout the book. The first involves a fourteen year old prostitute and their attempts to get her off the streets and back home to her family. The second is the investigation of the murder of a child. This becomes a much more emotional case that turns personal, with Strange walking a moral tightrope.

Once again, Pelecanos has delivered a powerful story that graphically portrays the mean streets and dangerous characters of modern day society. Although relentlessly illustrating the everyday tragedy surrounding us all, there is at least an underlying tone of hope.

Rating:
Summary: In the End We Find Redemption and Hope
Review: Derek Strange is a tough but sensitive black private eye with his own agency, an honorable ex-cop somewhere in his middle fifties, who prides himself on being a role model for his neighborhood. His partner in the agency is the hot-tempered, white ex-cop Terry Quinn.

Strange is working a background check on a young man who is engaged to a friend's daughter. Also a couple of crusading young female ex-cops, who specialize in locating minors, hire them to help liberate an underage prostitute named Jennifer Marshall from the clutches of a pimp named Worldwide Wilson.

Strange is coaching a peewee football team of poor kids with the help of a couple of fathers, a couple of cops and Quinn. As Quinn tangles with Wilson, three young thugs begin to linger at the fringes of football practice. Are they there because of Strange's investigation? Then one of the stars on Strange's football team is killed in a drive by. Strange and Quinn set out to find the killers and their investigation leads them deep inside the city's labyrinth of crime and to the very lethal Worldwide Wilson.

Strange and Quinn are assailed on all sides by young, gun toting players in the drug trade, who demand respect at the point of a gun. Strange deplores the way these kids act, trying to prove they are real men, backing it up with their guns, and he longs for a time in the nation's capital that he has idealized from his youth.

For all its violence and its portrait of what's wrong with parts of our society, and despite the emotional ride you'll go on in this story, this book is strangely not depressing. It's actually a story of moral accountability, redemption and hope and I can't recommend it highly enough.

Rating:
Summary: " Noir" novel complete with the music and language...
Review: George Pelecanos drags the reader into the heart of Washington D.C. and changes a "statistic" into a real, living, breathing child with a future that is torn from him, his life callously ended when some young men try to even up a score with a gun.
The young boy was a football player on Derek Strange's team, a team aimed at giving at risk kids some goals and guidelines and encouragement to step beyond their perceived boundaries. Pelecanos creates a "noir" novel, complete with the music and language and thoughts of all those involved. It is gritty, tense and edgey, with a slight glimmer of hope and a future.

Rating:
Summary: An Enjoyable, Quick Read
Review: George Pelecanos Hell to Pay is an enjoyable read full of quick wit and fast dialogue. Pelecanos focuses on Derek Strange, a private investigator in DC and his partner Terry Quinn. The novel follows several story lines, some of which become intertwined, some of which don't. Reading it reminded me of watching an episode of C.S.I.--addictive, enjoyable, filled with various, disturbing story lines. The characters are very well-done, rounded, believable. All in all, an enjoyable read which I think will appeal to all--not just fans of crime novels.

Rating:
Summary: I can't bring myself to pick up another book by him
Review: George Pelecanos is deservedly earning a loyal following of folks who like his urban Washington-based stories of crime, drugs, and residents who are sick of it yet can't escape. Pelecanos obviously has a love-hate relationship with his hometown. Yet after reading his books I fear most folks wouldn't want to get near it.

'Hell to Pay' is standard Pelecanos material. His characterizations are uniformly excellent, the prose is intelligent yet accessible, and he really captures the 'feel' of the urban ghettos in and around Washington. In this book we have a couple of private investigators, both former cops, involved with coping with brutal crimes close to their hearts. Both wrestle with the temptation of revenge. The reader has to wait until the last pages to know if these guys turn into vigilantes or manage to keep their own heads above the law.

Yet 'Hell to Pay' is not a perfect read. While very enjoyable I found the plot to be surprisingly ... unengaging, or at least much of it fairly predictable. Maybe I am just too much of a fan of George Pelecanos and I expect too much, or his style has become simply too familiar? Regardless, 'Hell to Pay' is still a very good book.

Bottom line: not a classic, but a fine example of contemporary American crime fiction.

Rating:
Summary: gritty, realistic crime drama; Pelecanos on form..
Review: George Pelecanos is deservedly earning a loyal following of folks who like his urban Washington-based stories of crime, drugs, and residents who are sick of it yet can't escape. Pelecanos obviously has a love-hate relationship with his hometown. Yet after reading his books I fear most folks wouldn't want to get near it.

'Hell to Pay' is standard Pelecanos material. His characterizations are uniformly excellent, the prose is intelligent yet accessible, and he really captures the 'feel' of the urban ghettos in and around Washington. In this book we have a couple of private investigators, both former cops, involved with coping with brutal crimes close to their hearts. Both wrestle with the temptation of revenge. The reader has to wait until the last pages to know if these guys turn into vigilantes or manage to keep their own heads above the law.

Yet 'Hell to Pay' is not a perfect read. While very enjoyable I found the plot to be surprisingly ... unengaging, or at least much of it fairly predictable. Maybe I am just too much of a fan of George Pelecanos and I expect too much, or his style has become simply too familiar? Regardless, 'Hell to Pay' is still a very good book.

Bottom line: not a classic, but a fine example of contemporary American crime fiction.

Rating:
Summary: HELL TO PAY
Review: H ere again are Strange and Quinn
E ver vigilant on the mean streets of Washington
L ooking for a prostitute, to take her to safety
L eading the young on a path of self-respect

T ragedy hits at a personal level
O nly a strong man can get himself through it.

P elecanos has produced an evocative story
A powerful story filled with suspense
Y et by the end, there is a strong feeling of hope.

Rating:
Summary: My first Pelecanos novel and probably my last
Review: I picked up Hell to Pay with no expectations. I saw it in my local Border's and noticed he was a local (Washington, DC) crime novelist, which fascinated me. After I bought the book, but before I began reading it, I read an article about Pelecanos and Hell to Pay in a major weekly magazine (it might have been Entertainment Weekly) which built up Pelecanos as one of the freshest new voices in crime fiction today. So by the time I started reading Hell to Pay, my expectations may have been a bit high.

Regardless, I came away disappointed. The plot was fairly thin. Everything that took place could have fit into three or four chapters. There were no real twists or turns that made me feel compelled to keep turning the pages. Additionally, there were several scenes of . . . intimacy . . . that just felt like they didn't belong in the story at all. They seemed a little gratuitous (but certainly not overly indulgent). The characters all seemed relatively contrived.

The redeeming features of this book are the snapshots of life in Washington, DC it provides. Pelecanos' Washington is not the Washington that you will see on The West Wing or any feature film. This is a story of the real people that live and work in Washington everyday. Also, the dialogue seemed very real to me, which is an important element of any piece of fiction.

In the end, this was not an unpleasant read, but there are many more books I would recommend above Hell to Pay.

Rating:
Summary: Hell of a Read!
Review: I really enjoyed this second novel in the Derek Strange series. HELL TO PAY is an action novel from beginning to end with a great deal of substance in between. I didn't read any of the Derek Strange books in order. I read this novel after reading SOUL CIRCUS. I found out how Terry Quinn got that scar on his face from his run in with a seemingly larger than life pimp named Worldwide. The character Terry seems a lot more developed in this novel than in SOUL CIRCUS. This novel develops both characters personal lives such that they actually seem more like three dimensional characters. I've yet to read HARD REVOLUTION to find out the connection between Granville Oliver's father and Strange. Granville Oliver is the fictional drug kingpin introduced towards the end of this novel who figures more prominently in SOUL CIRCUS. I found this novel a joy to read it's a serial novel but newcomers to the series can pick up any of the Derek Strange novels and start from any point in the series.