Rating: 
Summary: Recent Pelecanos is great, this is mediocre.
Review: I first read Right as Rain, and Hell to Pay. Those are great books. I can't wait to read the new one in that series. A Firing Offense, and the others in this early series by Stefanos is very mediocre. The protagonist is drinks, smokes pot (an interesting twist), and likes getting laid. The writing just plain isn't that good. Just another private i book. Nothing to get excited about. His recent series with Right as Rain, Hell to Pay, and the new one, Soul Circus, are worth getting excited about. Read those.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable, but not a totally satisfying story.
Review: I had the feeling through out that the character was being established for a series rather than creating a self contained novel.
Rating:
Summary: I liked it, but...
Review: I liked it because it was a good snapshot of a man trying to get away from his past and start a new life. However, I only need to read about a few beers and drinks and drugs and I get the idea... after a while it gets pretty boring reading the laundry list of drink and drugs Nick is going through. Even at only 216 pages it could have been trimmed down. He definitely has to learn how to portray women in general and his love interests specifically. It was almost like he added them later to create tension, but didn't flesh them out at all.Otherwise, I though it was a well written, suspenseful mystery with a few twists. I would buy it at a discount (which I did), but don't pay full price.
Rating: 
Summary: A well-handled crime novel
Review: Nick Stefanos is an ad manager at a Washington DC electronic store. He is asked to find a missing teenager named Jimmy Broda by the boys grandfather and soon uncovers a plot involving murder and drug running. The story in this relatively short novel is rather straightforward. Nick however makes a fairly interesting anti-hero. He is an aimless, un-ambitious misanthrope, prone to drug-fuelled drinking binges. The prose is tough, atmospheric and realistic: "This section of town had its own smell in the early evening, of dried spit and alley dirt in the wedges of cracked concrete." There's a well-drawn supporting cast of characters, particularly the floor salesmen at "Nutty Nathans", the electronics chain where Nick works. The ending is dark and uncompromising, there are no happy ever afters here. This is the first book by George P. Pelecanos that I've read and afterwards I wanted to read more. It is a fine crime novel in the tradition of Jim Thompson or David Goodis.
Rating:
Summary: Great writing, Implausible Plot
Review: Peleconos' prose is vivid and his characters are memorable, making for an enjoyable read. What keeps this book from being great, however, are the many implausible plot contrivences that just don't make sense (to say anything more would make this a spoiler). Also annoying are the innumerable references to alternative rock music. It seems he wants to use music much like a soundtrack setting for a movie--this works if you're familiar with early 80s alternative work (I am), but place this book in the hands of a twentysomething and it becomes, at best, a needless destraction.
Rating:
Summary: Stereo salesmen, drugs, booze in post-punk D.C.
Review: Retail stereo salesman who smoke dope and drink in the backroom and poke fun of their customers behind their backs. The street-level seedy side of Washington D.C. Shattered lives in the shadow of our nation's capitol. The Post-punk music scene and skin heads. The search for a missing stock boy. Drugs, guns, violence, music, booze and more booze. Pelecanos takes us into a part of D.C. only an insider would know in a fast-paced mystery that kept me interested to the end.
Rating:
Summary: Macho Mania
Review: This first book in the "Nick Stefanos" series is definately a guy book: lots of drinking and drugs, fistfights, all-night drives, hamburgers, and sex on the couch. Excellent descriptions and some fine writing, to be sure, but a little more author's energy spent on character development would have helped me relate to Nick and his buddies, and actually invest some energy in caring what happened to them. "A Firing Offense" is a good story, however, and one well worth reading if you like action and plot.
Rating:
Summary: Macho Mania
Review: This first book in the "Nick Stefanos" series is definately a guy book: lots of drinking and drugs, fistfights, all-night drives, hamburgers, and sex on the couch. Excellent descriptions and some fine writing, to be sure, but a little more author's energy spent on character development would have helped me relate to Nick and his buddies, and actually invest some energy in caring what happened to them. "A Firing Offense" is a good story, however, and one well worth reading if you like action and plot.
Rating:
Summary: Plays around with the genre
Review: This is the first Nick Stefanos mystery and it is great. Pelecanos really fools arouind with the conventions of the genre, making Stefanos and ex-salesman, who turns PI. when he does the plot doesn't get too complicated, and revolves aroudn a business that Pelecanos knows well. This is a perfect example of writing about what you know. The pages turn and the story envelopes you. I suggest you try this book as your first Pelecanos and then move on. This sets them all up. A great novel.
Rating:
Summary: Yawn
Review: This was my first Pelecanos book, and it will also be my last. I cannot understand why he is considered such a hot author. I didn't like the main character, or any of the other characters for that matter, and frankly, the book was a bore. In addition, I found it fairly implausible, which for me is always a turnoff. Perhaps I am being a bit generous in giving it three stars.
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