George Pelecanos

Shoedog George Pelecanos

Constantine is a drifter, a man with a lot of miles behind him and a lot more ahead and a number of jobs in between that never showed up on anyone's books. He hitches a ride on a bright spring morning with a little man named Polk. Heading down a country road in Polk's hopped-up muscle-car, the two men share a few cigarettes. This is how it starts. Later, when Constantine walks toward the big brick house, the Beat in his head, the grip of the .45 warm in his hand, the siren wailing in the night at his back, he thinks that the whole thing started on that road, with the car stopping for his upturned thumb. He thinks that the things that happen to a man are put in motion by something just that small, that random. He thinks about that, and he laughs. But he keeps walking. Shoedog is noir writing at its finest, a modern crime novel with the lingering resonance of good whiskey and the brutal recoil of a shotgun blast.