Little, Brown & Company
January 2015
On Sale: January 6, 2015
305 pages ISBN: 0316284378 EAN: 9780316284370 Kindle: B00KAEXMGK Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
Short stories and a novella from one of crime fiction's
most revered writers.
Whether they're cops or
conmen, savage killers or creative types, gangsters or
God-fearing citizens, George Pelecanos' characters are
always engaged in a fight for their lives. They fight to
advance or simply to survive; they fight against odds,
against enemies, even against themselves. In this, his
first collection of stories, the acclaimed novelist
introduces readers to a vivid and eclectic cast of
combatants.
A seasoned claims investigator tracks a
supposedly dead man from Miami to Brazil, only to be thrown
off his game by a kid from the local slum. An aging loser
takes a last stab at respectability by becoming a police
informant. A Greek-American couple adopts an interracial
trio of sons and then struggles to keep their family
together, giving us a stirring bit of background on one of
Pelecanos' most beloved protagonists, Spero Lucas. In the
title novella - which takes its name from Hollywood slang
for the last shot of the day, the one that comes before the
liquor shots begin - we go behind the scenes of a television
cop show, where a writer gets caught up in a drama more real
than anything he could have conjured for a script.
By turns heartbreaking and humane, brutal and funny, these
finely constructed tales expose the violence and striving
beneath the surface of any city and within any human heart.
Tough, sexy, fast-paced, and crackling with energy, The
Martini Shot is Pelecanos at his very best.