The Night Gardener

Starred review from June 19, 2006
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.

Starred review from May 15, 2006
For Washington, DC, cop Gus Malone, the murder of teenager Asa Johnson isn't just another case. For one thing, Asa was a friend of Gus's son, so the death has a personal impact on his family. Secondly, the details of the case are startlingly similar to those of several still-unsolved serial killings that took place 20 years earlier, when Gus was a young officer. Complicating matters is that Asa's body was discovered by Gus's former partner, Dan Holiday, who left the department under a cloud. Soon, Holiday and T.C. Cook, the legendary, now-retired lead detective who investigated the original murders, integrate themselves into Gus's case. Pelecanos ("Soul Circus") creates another fascinating, completely believable hero whose supporting cast members all have their own great stories. As in his previous novels, as well as his work on HBO's "The Wire", he manages to weave several threads perfectly into the larger story. Another winner from arguably our best contemporary crime writer, this is a necessary purchase for all public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 4/15/06.]" - Craig Shufelt, Lane P.L., Oxford, OH"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2006
As he did in " Drama City" (2005), Pelecanos again rests his series characters but keeps the action firmly grounded on the inner-city streets of Washington, D.C. This time he focuses on three cops--one retired, the legendary detective T. C. Cook; another, Dan ("Doc") Holiday, forced to quit under a morals cloud; and a third, Gus Ramone, soldiering on in the dogged effort to be "good police." The three worked together 15 years earlier on a still-unsolved case involving a series of murdered teenagers. Now, with another teenager murdered--his body found, as were those of the previous victims, in one of the city's community gardens--the old case has resurfaced, and the three cops find themselves thrown together, each hoping to excise their very different personal demons. The more Pelecanos writes, the more he extends his range, circling outward from the central crime story to encompass more of the sociopolitical landscape yet simultaneously drawing inward to reflect on how that landscape affects the inner lives of his characters. In the past, though, he has focused mainly on civilians--good, bad, and various shades in between--but here, for the first time since " Hard Revolution" (2004), he looks closely at police. The result isn't just a procedural--though it is that, and a very good one--but also a form of explorative surgery, in which he lays open the hearts of three cops and observes how those organs beat. One thinks of Michael Connelly, John Harvey, and Ian Rankin--other writers able to look inside their cop heroes with remarkable sensitivity--but Pelecanos' scalpel may cut more precisely than any of them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)