Calendar Girl (22 page)

As the advertising director of Nutty Nathan’s – “The Miser Who Saves You Money!” – Nick Stefanos knows all the tricks of the electronics business. Blow-out sales and shady deals were his life.

When one of the stockboys disappears, it’s not news: just another metalhead who went off chasing some dream of big money and easy living.

But the kid reminded Nick of himself twelve years ago: an angry punk hooked on speed metal and the fast life. So when the boy’s grandfather begs Nick to try to find the kid, Nick says he’ll try.

A Firing Offense,
Nick Stefanos’ debut, shows why George P. Pelecanos is a cult figure in U.S. crime writing. As Barry Gifford puts it, “To miss out on Pelecanos would be criminal.”

“A contemporary classic … Pelecanos is a fresh, new, utterly hardboiled voice.
A Firing Offense
is full of virtuoso scenes of imaginative sex and substance abuse, suspenseful action, and brooding meditation on a newly lost generation”
The Washington Post

“Pelecanos puts together a slam-bang climax that contains all the requisite elements – action, tragedy, victory, and random death. It’s a terrific start for a quality series”
Mostly Murder

“The coolest writer in America”
GQ

“The kind of book you are always hoping to find but rarely do” James Sallis

“Here is your first turn-of-the-century crime writer” Charlie Gillett

“An even more promising follow-up to Pelecanos’ highly recommended first novel,
A Firing Offense …” New Mystery

“Snaps with authentic street talk and with a switchhitting plot … has something important to say about trust and treachery”
Washington Post

Nick Stefanos, having earned his P.I. license, quickly discovers that snapping photos of unfaithful husbands does not make for a fulfilling job. Tending bar one night at the Spot, Nick is visited by his high-school friend, Billy Goodrich. Billy’s wife is gone. Nick agrees to find her. And with that first step, he sets out on a one-way trip through a sewer of theft, intrigue and love.

George P. Pelecanos’ reputation goes from strength to strength.

After a night of drinking, Nick Stefanos passes out in a public park. Some time before dawn he wakes up when he hears a car door slam, and then a voice ‘’You already been a punk. Least you can do is go out a man.” Then a dull popping sound and a quiet splash.

And that’s how Stefanos gets drawn into the murder of Calvin Jeter. The investigation takes him through the roughest part of the nation’s capital and the blackest parts of the human soul.

Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go
is the third title in the Nick Stefanos series – which establishes George Pelecanos as the rightful heir to the noir tradition of James Cain, David Goodis and Jim Thompson.

“The customers at the Spot in Southeast D.C. like to hear Barry White and Isaac Hayes on the bar’s cassette player, but when they’ve all gone home, bartender Nick puts on P.J. Harvey. In his wallet is a state license which says he’s Nicholas J. Stefanos, Private Investigator … George Pelecanos has broken with tradition in so many ways, it feels as if he has launched a category of his own. Partly, it’s his convincing evocation of an unfamiliar setting but mainly it’s the feeling that we are definitely in the present – here is your first turn-of-the-century crime writer.”
Charlie Gillett