Rating: 
Summary: Typically Hard-Bitten
Review: Nick Stefanos returns in the third book of the series. If Nick had a small drinking problem in "Nick's Trip", it's developed nicely into full-blown alcoholism by this book. It was while on a bender one night that Nick passes out in a public park, only to be wakened in the early hours by a man being shot to death and dumped in the water. Due to some strange feeling of guilt or responsibility over the murder, Nick feels he should investigate what went on.Once again George Pelecanos has produced a typically hard-bitten look at the seedier parts of Washington D.C. and paints the picture of a lonely man who can't seem to quite get his act together. The big development in this book is that Nick picks up a partner, a fellow private investigator who doesn't smoke and doesn't drink. He is probably the perfect foil for Nick's excesses, but he is a bit of an enigma with some closely guarded secrets about his personal life. Just a word of warning while you are reading this book. Don't get too close to the pages or you'll run the risk of waking up the next morning with a doozy of a hangover, the Old Grand Dad and Bud does get a bit of a workout.
Rating: 
Summary: Great DC atmosphere but at what cost?
Review: Pelecanos' hip pop-culture references cannot sustain this clichéd novel. The boozing detective angle has been mined for all it's worth and the author adds little to the genre. His romantic relationships are particularly uninteresting, and his sexual exploits (under the influence of alcohol?) are patently absurd. While the descriptions of DC and its denizens are amusing to a native, Nick Stefanos lacks the hardboiled charm of Marlowe and doesn't measure up to the PC smugness of your average cat detective
Rating: 
Summary: Pelecanos at his best
Review: This is the last and most cynical novel in the Nick Stefanos trilogy. Nick has now travelled far down the dark road, and his struggle to get some peace of mind is more then ever tangled up in his love for a drink, some good music, and the warmth of a womans body. It's also in one of his more delerious nights that the story gets started. Nick happens to witness a murder when he's lying half unconscious in a pile of himself and his vomits; which is going to be the start of a dangerous ride that leads right into the drug and porn industry of Washington DC. Down by the river where the dead men go is an excelent hard-boiled novel in all its ways. But what makes Pelecanos unique toward other writers, in this genre, is all his references to pop music, and film. This he uses in a very subtle way to describe his chracters and where in the subcultures of Washington DC's street life they belong. It is this total awareness of popular culture combined with his perfect feeling for street dialogue that makes Pelecanos not just a great crime writer, but a great writer in all terms of judgements. And it is in this third novel that he best manages to combine his feeling for pop music, and dialogue with a good and intriguing story.
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