George
P. Pelecanos (born 18 February
1957) is an American author. Many of his 20 books are in the genre of detective fiction and set primarily in his hometown of
Washington, D.C. He is also a film and television producer and a television
writer. On television, he frequently collaborates with David Simon, writing multiple episodes of Simon's HBO series The Wire and Treme, and is also the co-creator (with Simon) of the HBO
series The Deuce. Pelecanos,
a Greek American, was born
in Washington, D.C. in
1957. Pelecanos acknowledged that Elmore Leonard was a prime influence on him as an author. In addition to Leonard, he cited the works
of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, John D. MacDonald, Ross Macdonald, Mickey Spillane, and John le Carré for getting him hooked on crime fiction. Pelecanos's
early novels were written in the first person voice of Nick Stefanos, a Greek
D.C. resident and sometime private investigator. After the success of his first
four novels, the Stefanos-narrated A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip, and Down by the
River Where the Dead Men Go, and the non-series (though some
characters do cross over) Shoedog, Pelecanos switched his narrative style
considerably and expanded the scope of his fiction with his D.C. Quartet. He
has commented that he did not feel he had the ability to be this ambitious
earlier in his career. The quartet, often compared to James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, spanned several decades and
communities within the changing population of Washington. Now writing in the
third person, Pelecanos relegated Stefanos to a supporting character and
introduced his first "salt and pepper" team of crime fighters, Dimitri
Karras and Marcus Clay. In The Big Blowdown, set a generation before Karras and Clay
would appear (the 1950s), Pelecanos followed the lives of dozens of D.C.
residents, tracking the challenges and changes that the second half of the
twentieth century presented to Washingtonians. King Suckerman, set
in the 1970s and generally regarded as the fans' favorite, introduced the
recurring theme of basketball in Pelecanos' fiction.
Typically, he employs the sport as a symbol of cooperation amongst the races,
suggesting the dynamism of D.C. as reflective of the good will generated by
multi-ethnic pick up games. However, he also indulges the reverse of the
equation, wherein the basketball court becomes the site of unresolved
hostilities. In such cases, violent criminal behavior typically emerges amongst
the participants, usually escalating the mystery. The Sweet
Forever (1980s) and Shame the Devil (1990s) closed the quartet and
Pelecanos retired Stefanos and the other characters that populated the novels.
(Stefanos and other characters do reappear in subsequent works). In 2001, he
introduced a new team of private detectives, Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, as
the protagonists of Right as Rain. They have subsequently starred in the
author's more recent works Hell to Pay (which
won a Gumshoe Award in
2003) and Soul Circus. While
these books have cemented the author's reputation as one of the best current
American crime writers and sold consistently, they have not garnered the
critical and cult affection his D.C. quartet did. Rather, they seem to be
continuing the author's well received formula of witty protagonists chasing
unconflicted criminals behind the backdrop of popular culture references and
D.C. landmarks. Perhaps sensing this, Pelecanos again switched his focus in his
2004 novel, Hard Revolution,
taking one of his new detectives, Derek Strange, back in time to his early days
on the D.C. police force. In another interesting move, Pelecanos attached a CD
to the book itself, emulating Michael Connelly who included a CD with his 2003 Harry
Bosch book Lost Light. In 2005,
Pelecanos saw another novel published, Drama City.
This book revisited the examination of dogfighting begun in his book Hell
To Pay. Pelecanos is a dog owner and has written about his views of
dogfighting. In 2006 he published The Night Gardener,
which was a major change of style and which featured a cameo of himself.
Pelecanos has also published short fiction in a variety of anthologies and
magazines, including Measures of Poison and Usual
Suspects. His reviews have been published in The Washington Post Book
World, The New York Times Book
Review, and elsewhere. The Turnaround was published
in August 2008, reflecting a return to his roots, as the novel opens in the 70s
in a Greek diner, and a continuation of his more modern style in the portion
set in the present. The Turnaround won the 2008's Hammett Prize. In 2011, Pelecanos published The Cut,
introducing the character Spero Lucas, a young veteran of the Iraq war. The
former Marine works part-time as a private investigator for a D.C. defense
attorney as well as taking jobs finding stolen items for a 40% cut of the value
of the returned item. In 2013, Pelecanos published The Double, the
second Spero Lucas book. Pelecanos has in turn influenced other novelists. They
include Kristen Lepionka, who won the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel in 2018. Lepionka
cited his "lean, laconic prose." The introduction to a 2018
interview with William Boyle pointed
to Pelecanos's influence on Boyle, in particular as a "meticulous
chronicler of process." elecanos
has written and produced for HBO's The Wire and is part of a literary circle with The
Wire creator David Simon and
novelist Laura Lippman. Simon
sought out Pelecanos after reading his work. Simon was recommended his novels
several times but did not read his work initially because of territorial
prejudice; Simon is from Baltimore. Once Simon received further
recommendations, including one from Lippman, he tried The Sweet Forever and
changed his mind. The two writers have much in common including a childhood
in Silver Spring, Maryland,
attendance at the University of Maryland, and their interest in the "fate
of the American city and the black urban poor". They first met at the
funeral of a mutual friend shortly after Simon delivered the pilot episode. Simon
pitched Pelecanos the idea of The Wire as a novel for
television about the American city as Pelecanos drove him home. Pelecanos was
excited about the prospect of writing something more than simple mystery for
television as he strived to exceed the boundaries of genre in his novels.
Pelecanos joined the crew as a writer for the first season in 2002. He
wrote the teleplay for the season's penultimate episode, "Cleaning Up", from a
story by Simon and Ed Burns. Pelecanos was promoted to
producer for the second season in 2003. He wrote the teleplay for the episodes
"Duck and Cover"
and "Bad Dreams"
from stories he co-wrote with Simon. He remained a writer and producer for
the third season in 2004. He wrote the teleplay for the episodes "Hamsterdam"
and "Middle Ground"
from stories he co-wrote with Simon. Simon wrote the teleplay for the
episode "Slapstick" from a
story he co-wrote with Pelecanos. Simon and Pelecanos' collaboration on
"Middle Ground" received the show's first Emmy Award nomination, in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Pelecanos left
the production staff of The Wire after the show's third season
to concentrate on writing his novel The Night Gardener.[25] His role as a producer was taken on by Eric Overmyer.