My first book by this author. The writing is better than the story itself, which if you’re wanting nonstop action you’ll not find it here. Just great dialogue and a look inside the lives of everyday and somewhat mundane police work.

Starts out in 1985 with 3 police officers working the 'Palindrome Killer' case.
Cut to 2005 - case still open and another kid gets killed - Asa, who happens to be one of the detective's son's friends. This case ends up getting the 3 officers back together...one of which is retired, one had begrudgingly left the force, and the other still works, but it is not his life. We do get to see what his life is like in W. DC...wife, 2 kids, everyday troubles, etc.
I really liked that the book focused a lot on the officer's son and the relationship he had with him. It gave a good look into the lives kids growing up in a diverse area and what their lives are like.
I would highly recommend this book (however, it is quite crass at times, as the language of the police officers isn't very 'clean')and I will definitely be reading more of Pelecanos's books.

Good, though gritty book and I enjoyed it more for the excellent writing than the storyline. Pelecanos' descriptions of sleazy and despicable people made me want to take a shower. The main characters are multifaceted and real.

A police procedural with a difference.

Not a ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ story - mirroring reality somewhat.

The story is set in New York and moves from 1985 (when a number of African American teenagers were murdered and dumped in local parks) to 2005 (tracking the paths of the police that where involved in the initial investigation of the unsolved murders).

They were named The Palindrome Murders . This moniker was tagged to the deaths as each victim’s first name read the same way backwards as forward ie Eve, Otto etc

It’s got a bit of criminal everything -organised crime, corrupt police, dead people and the brooding atmosphere of the back streets of New York.

I struggled trying to decipher some of the NY colloquialisms for example what is a wrinkle free oxford? I thought the author was describing shoes but whoever was wearing the wrinkle free oxfords was also wearing monk strapped sandals - whatever the fuck they are. ‘Under the wheel’ kept me guessing too.
I figured that Kirkin Out means going crazy.

I’m easily distracted by the minutiae.

Good book. I’ll be reading more of his stuff.

George Pelicanos is one of the writers from The Wire- after the show ended I need my fix. The character development isn't the greatest but the plot moves fast. All of his novels are set in DC and he knows the city like the back of his hand.

The body of a black teen is found with one shot to the head in a community garden. MPD homicide detective Gus Ramone’s own teen son knew the boy, and Ramone is driven to solve the case. Two ex-cops – one who quit under morals charges and one a retired legend – think this murder might be related to a series of killings twenty years earlier in which the victims were all left in gardens, and take it upon themselves to investigate, though they have no authority. In a subplot, a young banger, inspired by the legend of ‘70s bad guy Red Fury (from the Pelecanos novel What it Was), wants to go on a spree that will have people saying his name for years to come – but he may have stolen from the wrong bad guys.

This is another hard-boiled, gritty, seamy-side-of-the-city crime novel from an established master. Engaging, suspenseful, and intricate, this is a page-turner from beginning to end. Phrases I’ve used to sing the praises of Pelecanos’ unflinching prose in earlier novels also apply here: he “creates a grim tableau of the modern city and its culture of poverty, crime, and drugs;” he “delivers the seedy underbelly of DC without rose-colored glasses or glorification;” he “knows DC streets, restaurant culture, the way criminals move and talk, types of weapons, and all the other little details that bring characters and plots to life.” I repeat myself because with every book, he proves again that he can deliver the human side of crime: the problems in the school system that foster cycles of ignorance and violence, the culture of expensive clothes and hyper-masculinity where appearance and reputation are king; the economic disparity; the undercurrent of race resentment, always bubbling near the surface. His minor characters are richly drawn and have an air of tragedy because Pelecanos knows that even drug addicts and gangsters have dreams and goals. In this book, Pelecanos tones down his irritating foible of defining masculinity in his work, though the stupid line “he checked out her backside, because he was a man” (which I found needless in Soul Circus) is here as well, and his nearly defensive preference for voluptuous women results in cartoonishly predictable body shapes for characters, as if this were a Disney cartoon: curvy women, whether wife or whore, have a lust for life and good heart, and slim hips are a near-sure sign that that woman is a humorless prude. I know this is nitpicking; I just continue to find it odd that an author who can bring empathy to killers and corrupt police can’t seem to shake his neurosis about manliness and body shape.

1985 and a serial killer seems to be targeting black children with palindromic names (Eve, Otto, Ava). The cops draw a blank and the killer apparently stops. Fast forward to 2005 and another kid is found dead and his name (Asa) rings some alarm bells with straight-arrow cop Ramone and his ex-colleague turned limo driver "Doc" Holiday. Add to the mix wannabe gangsta Romeo and his older cousin who is desperately and vainly trying to keep him on the straight and narrow, a retired police sergeant with an obsession and Detective Ramone's tribulations with fourteen-year-old son Diego and we have a humdinger of a police procedural with a bit of social commentary thrown in. Like many of his peers, Pelecanos is under no illusions about the damage done by drugs and the even worse damage done by the war on drugs, especially on its effects on police-community relations. 4 stars.

This book was solid, but pales in comparison to Pelecanos' book Shame the Devil (but, to be fair, that's also one of my all-time favourite books).

I like Pelecanos' style where he starts the book in the past and then moves it up to the present year, in this instance 2005. I was in high school in 2005, so certain attitudes or bits of technology coming about, such as digital cameras and we teens getting our first Nokias or LG flip phones, felt nostalgic. I love that music is crucial in his stories and is often a driving force. And i empathize with the cops who are willing to do the wrong things for the right reasons, even if it's (potentially) morally unjust.

I liked the way the characters meshed together and the prospective overlaps in cases. I liked that there were characters who had started off on paths paved from poor life choices, but that they had the chance to redeem themselves. Pelecanos has done this before, and I'd argue that it's one of his signatures. I also appreciate the way he allows characters with nothing to lose but still with something worth fighting for and believing in to die. He always shows them passing with calm, peace, dignity, and forgiveness, which I think is how anyone would want to pass from this world into the next.

I was concerned that this book was going to become just one large anticlimax, but I was also ok with the prospect. Sometimes murders never get solved. That's a fact of life. But then Pelecanos decided to have us jump back to the beginning, and the villain became someone worthy of equal amounts of pity. And the dramatic irony Pelecanos employs, which is my favourite tool in his writing kit, comes into play. The climax wasn't so anticlimactic after all.

This book was my first for 2025, and made for a solid start to this year's literary journey.

Nobody captures the life of the Washington, DC citizen as George Pelecanos. He doesn't write about thepoliticians, power brokers and party-happy elite of the upper class suburbs, but the ordinary people of the city as they struggle to raise families and go to jobs among a criminal element determined to make their lives difficult.

In The Night Gardener , Pelecanos' theme is ambition, and the way it can set a direction for life, or an early death. It's set against the backdrop of a cold case from 20 years earlier in which three teens were brutally murdered. The perpetrator was never found but now may have resurfaced. Three policemen who were there at the beginning, now become involved in ways that may alter the way they look at the world after all these years.

A solid procedural that deals with human interest issues in a realistic way. One of Pelecanos' best.

mp3 workaday Oooh this more like it

Read By: Richard M Davidson
Total Duration: 11:29:59


blurb - Book Description
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Pelecanos (Drama City) delivers a dignified, character-driven epic that succeeds as both literary novel and page-turner. In 1985, the body of a 14-year-old girl turns up in a Washington, D.C., park, the latest in a series of murders by a killer the media dub "The Night Gardener." T.C. Cook, the aging detective on the case, works with a quiet, almost monomaniacal, focus. Also involved are two young uniformed cops, Gus Ramone, who's diligent, conscientious and unimpressed by heroics, and Dan "Doc" Holiday, an adrenaline junkie who's decidedly less straight. Fast forward 20 years. Detective Ramone, now married with kids of his own, investigates the murder of one of his teenage son's friends. The homicide closely resembles the earlier unsolved Night Gardener murders. Holiday, now an alcoholic chauffeur and bodyguard, follows the case on his own and tracks down Cook, long retired but still obsessed with the original murders. While the three work together toward a suspenseful ending, Pelecanos emphasizes the fallacy of "solving" a murder and explores the ripple effects of violent crime on society. (Aug.)

George Pelecanos is great! This book was fascinating and fun (in a very dark way). I especially love that Pelecanos writes about real locations, so I was able to drive down the very same streets and see key scenes through the characters eyes.

I always enjoy reading a Pelecanos book, partly because they are beautifully written in a decidly unliterary style, and partly because they are filled with fully rounded out characters almost all of whom are from the lower end of the income spectrum, whether they are policemen or drug dealers. This is a very sad collection of storylines coalescing into an elegant whole. A brilliant storyteller.