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The Martini Shot: A Novella and Short Stories
Short stories and a novella from one of crime fiction's most revered writers.
George Pelecanos gets inside the minds and hearts of a cast of indelible characters: from the adoptive parents of Spero Lucas trying to expand and redefine their family, to a young boy involved in a drug deal gone bad, to a 1930s immigrant dishwasher facing down a corrupt Pinkerton agent. In the novella, "The Martini Shot," Pelecanos takes readers behind the scenes of a cable TV cop show, where a writer gets caught up in drama more real than anything in a script. Crackling with energy, these stories bring readers to a new understanding of humanity, modern life, and circumstances that stack the deck against people who are just trying to make a decent life for themselves. Gritty, sexy, fast-paced, humane, THE MARTINI SHOT is Pelecanos at his very best.
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.
George Pelecanos gets inside the minds and hearts of a cast of indelible characters: from the adoptive parents of Spero Lucas trying to expand and redefine their family, to a young boy involved in a drug deal gone bad, to a 1930s immigrant dishwasher facing down a corrupt Pinkerton agent. In the novella, "The Martini Shot," Pelecanos takes readers behind the scenes of a cable TV cop show, where a writer gets caught up in drama more real than anything in a script. Crackling with energy, these stories bring readers to a new understanding of humanity, modern life, and circumstances that stack the deck against people who are just trying to make a decent life for themselves. Gritty, sexy, fast-paced, humane, THE MARTINI SHOT is Pelecanos at his very best.
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.
293 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2015
67 people are currently reading
755 people want to read
About the author
George P. Pelecanos
59 books1,626 followersGeorge Pelecanos was born in Washington, D.C., in 1957. He worked as a line cook, dishwasher, bartender, and woman's shoe salesman before publishing his first novel in 1992.
Pelecanos is the author of eighteen novels set in and around Washington, D.C.: A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip, Shoedog, Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go, The Big Blowdown, King Suckerman, The Sweet Forever, Shame the Devil, Right as Rain, Hell to Pay, Soul Circus, Hard Revolution, Drama City, The Night Gardener, The Turnaround, The Way Home, The Cut, and What It Was. He has been the recipient of the Raymond Chandler award in Italy, the Falcon award in Japan, and the Grand Prix du Roman Noir in France. Hell to Pay and Soul Circus were awarded the 2003 and 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire, Playboy, and the collections Unusual Suspects, Best American Mystery Stories of 1997, Measures of Poison, Best American Mystery Stories of 2002, Men from Boys, and Murder at the Foul Line. He served as editor on the collections D.C. Noir and D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, as well as The Best Mystery Stories of 2008. He is an award-winning essayist who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Sight and Sound, Uncut, Mojo, and numerous other publications. Esquire called him "the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world." In Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King wrote that Pelecanos is "perhaps the greatest living American crime writer." Pelecanos would like to note that Mr. King used the qualifier "perhaps."
Pelecanos served as producer on the feature films Caught (Robert M. Young, 1996), Whatever, (Susan Skoog, 1998) and BlackMale (George and Mike Baluzy, 1999), and was the U.S. distributor of John Woo's cult classic, The Killer and Richard Bugajski's Interrogation. Most recently, he was a producer, writer, and story editor for the acclaimed HBO dramatic series, The Wire, winner of the Peabody Award and the AFI Award. He was nominated for an Emmy for his writing on that show. He was a writer and co-producer on the World War II miniseries The Pacific, and is currently at work as an executive producer and writer on David Simon's HBO dramatic series Treme, shot in New Orleans.
Pelecanos lives with his family in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Pelecanos is the author of eighteen novels set in and around Washington, D.C.: A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip, Shoedog, Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go, The Big Blowdown, King Suckerman, The Sweet Forever, Shame the Devil, Right as Rain, Hell to Pay, Soul Circus, Hard Revolution, Drama City, The Night Gardener, The Turnaround, The Way Home, The Cut, and What It Was. He has been the recipient of the Raymond Chandler award in Italy, the Falcon award in Japan, and the Grand Prix du Roman Noir in France. Hell to Pay and Soul Circus were awarded the 2003 and 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire, Playboy, and the collections Unusual Suspects, Best American Mystery Stories of 1997, Measures of Poison, Best American Mystery Stories of 2002, Men from Boys, and Murder at the Foul Line. He served as editor on the collections D.C. Noir and D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, as well as The Best Mystery Stories of 2008. He is an award-winning essayist who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Sight and Sound, Uncut, Mojo, and numerous other publications. Esquire called him "the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world." In Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King wrote that Pelecanos is "perhaps the greatest living American crime writer." Pelecanos would like to note that Mr. King used the qualifier "perhaps."
Pelecanos served as producer on the feature films Caught (Robert M. Young, 1996), Whatever, (Susan Skoog, 1998) and BlackMale (George and Mike Baluzy, 1999), and was the U.S. distributor of John Woo's cult classic, The Killer and Richard Bugajski's Interrogation. Most recently, he was a producer, writer, and story editor for the acclaimed HBO dramatic series, The Wire, winner of the Peabody Award and the AFI Award. He was nominated for an Emmy for his writing on that show. He was a writer and co-producer on the World War II miniseries The Pacific, and is currently at work as an executive producer and writer on David Simon's HBO dramatic series Treme, shot in New Orleans.
Pelecanos lives with his family in Silver Spring, Maryland.
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January 15, 2023
My introduction to the fiction of George Pelecanos is The Martini Shot: A Novella and Stories. I knew Pelecanos as a writer-producer on HBO's The Wire, Treme and The Deuce, all as close to novels for television as can be and great American novels at that. This collection includes a novella published in 2015 (about a writer-producer on a cable TV cop show), as well as six previously published short stories and one new one. The novella was a light day at the gym compared to the gritty workouts that the short stories put me through, but every story is emotionally compelling, detailed and exposes life in parts of America shunned by most novelists.
-- The Confidential Informant (from D.C. Noir, 2006). Verdon Coates looks to generate income as an informant, tipping the homicide detective he works for with just enough information to apprehend the shooter in an unsolved murder case, while keeping his involvement confidential enough not to attract attention as a snitch. While mired in gritty detail about life for a man living from moment to moment on the streets, this story has heart and tremendous depth for its length, with Verdon hoping his efforts will make his Vietnam veteran father proud of him for a change. Four stars.
-- Chosen (from The Cut, 2011). Evangelos "Van" Lucas, a real estate investor of Greek descent, is convinced by his wife Eleni to begin a foster family after she experiences complications with the birth of their daughter. Over the years, they add three black infants to their family, but even love and education are no guarantees all of their children will prosper, particularly with a drug epidemic in the city. Like The Confidential Informant, Pelecanos demonstrates just as much understanding of family dynamics and the effect of drugs on relationships as he does for what's going on in the streets. Five stars.
They named him Spero and brought him home the next day. Upon entering the house, Eleni took a photograph. When it was developed, it showed Spero still in the car seat, Irene and Dimitrius off to the side, Leonidas with his arm around his new baby brother, Van down on one knee, broadly smiling, and Shilo sniffing at the new arrival in the foreground. Behind them, through the double glass doors of the family room, there was a thick wall of clouds, and though it was midday, a light appeared to wink in the gray sky. Van said it was the camera flash reflected in the glass. Eleni claimed it was a start. She would not tell him what she truly believed: that the light was a kind of eye. That there was something out there, watching them and watching over them, this family of six.
-- String Music (from Murder at the Foul Line, 2006). High school student Tonio Harris finds his life threatened from little more than winning a game of pickup basketball. Chased from a nightclub by the losing crew, Tonio crosses paths with Sergeant Peters, a veteran beat cop who knows his hardworking single mother and has been vouched for as being all right. The story alternates points of view between Tonio and Sgt. Peters and builds terrific suspense illuminating a world where wounded pride or the wrong word at the wrong time can end a life. Five stars.
-- When You're Hungry (from Unusual Suspects, 1996). Mexican-American John Moreno, an independent contractor specializing in international retrieval, arrives in Recife, Brazil, to investigate the disappearance of a man spotted in the resort town by a neighbor after the man's wife was awarded a two million life insurance settlement in his death. I love a story about a character good at his or her job and this is one, with Pelecanos demonstrating just as much finesse with a story set in Brazil as he does with those in D.C. The ending grabbed me by the collar. Five stars.
-- Miss Mary's Room. Tim is a white kid who recounts his friendship with another white boy named Pat and Pat's widowed mother, respectfully known as "Miss Mary." Separated from the smart kids and designated "tough kids" early on, Tim and Pat start smoking and peddling weed at age fourteen. Sitting in on a buy with their dealer, their friendship and lives never go back to what they were. This is another story where Pelecanos brings to bear tremendous detail about life on the streets but at the same time, includes a social consciousness and focus on how drugs and violence affect low income families. The ending is another heart wrencher. Five stars.
The police in this county here are all about catching kids in the act of smoking, like it's some kind of high crime. They even got plainclothes Spanish guys, young dudes who look like they could be in high school, busting Latino kids who smoke in the woods. Young black and white police do the same to their own kind. Meantime, if you are one of those nerd boys, you are pretty much safe, even if you partake in the sacrament yourself. The smart kids, the ones who been protected their whole lives, can go off to college and smoke all the weed they want in their dorm rooms. Shit is damn near legal for them. Just like it was for their parents.
-- Plastic Paddy (from Men From Boys, 2003). An unnamed narrator recounts an evening from his youth in the mid-1980s with his buddy Paddy O'Toole, née John Tool, a body shop worker whose major hobbies seem to be Irish culture and blow. After hanging at a pub with college pal of theirs who mocks "Paddy" for his interests as much as temperament, Paddy and the narrator head to Langley Park to score cocaine in a decision that seems disastrously bad from the start. While the aftermath may not be as tragic as some of the other stories, Pelecanos draws such a memorable portrait of Paddy and guys I knew like him in high school. Four stars.
-- The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us (from Measures of Poison, 2002). In the mid-20th century, twenty-eight year old Greek immigrant Bill, née Vasili, recounts his immigration to the U.S. and how blood got under his fingernails. Ultimately finding work as a busman at a fancy hotel, Bill befriends a gregarious white waiter quietly attempting to organize the workers. An ill-tempered new waiter is revealed to be a strike-busting Pinkerton detective and when Bill's co-worker is found in the Potomac, he takes the law into his own hands. Pelecanos brings historical detail, suspense and strong point of view to this story, which might be my favorite. Five stars.
-- The Martini Shot. Victor Ohanian is a writer-producer on a cable TV cop show shooting in a state with generous tax incentives for film production but a rough local element. Between rewrites for the show's diva lead and bouts of compassionate fucking with the show's art director Annette, who Vic is genuinely enamored with as she is of him, he makes inquiries into the shooting death of Skylar Branson, a young Texan who ran the electrical crew and with his girlfriend, sold weed on the side to the crew. This novella bops along with terrific behind-the-scenes detail into TV production and a little criminal intrigue, but the set romance between Vic and Annette is the stand-out. Four stars.
Unlike my marriage, hers had ended voluntarily. Her spouse had been a carpenter who worked on set construction for features. They'd met on a show in Wilmington, North Carolina, when Annette was an assistant in the art department on a Dino De Laurentiis production. Steve had never outgrown his fascination with the muscle car culture of his youth. He'd flipped his vehicle, broke his neck and burned to death in a street race on a foggy two-lane ten years ago. I knew she'd loved him very much. There were many photographs of Steve in her hotel room. She loved him still.
Steve and Annette had not had children, and now, at forty-four, she knew her maternal ship had sailed. Like me, she had become a professional wanderer, a hotel dweller, without roots, a person with tired eyes who worked seventy-hour weeks. It was hardly a healthy atmosphere in which to raise a child.
Film and television productions were like circuses that arrived in town and brought excitement to the locals for a short period of time. We came and went, leaving the straights to their families, their backyard barbecues, their churches, their nine-to-fives. "We've got sawdust in our veins." I'd heard that expression muttered by my co-workers countless times.
George Pelecanos earned his spot in the Screenwriter's Hall of Fame for his work on The Wire, including Season 3 teleplays for "Hamsterdam" and "Slapstick" which dealt with a besieged Baltimore police major who legalizes drugs in his district. If this book is any indication, his fiction is just as strong; fluid prose, honest dialogue, terrific detail into worlds I barely know. I found myself on the same page with Pelecanos on politics, sex and race, particularly how drug laws disproportionately target low income communities. He deals with these three subjects honestly and humanely, as opposed to pretending they don't exist in America.
-- The Confidential Informant (from D.C. Noir, 2006). Verdon Coates looks to generate income as an informant, tipping the homicide detective he works for with just enough information to apprehend the shooter in an unsolved murder case, while keeping his involvement confidential enough not to attract attention as a snitch. While mired in gritty detail about life for a man living from moment to moment on the streets, this story has heart and tremendous depth for its length, with Verdon hoping his efforts will make his Vietnam veteran father proud of him for a change. Four stars.
-- Chosen (from The Cut, 2011). Evangelos "Van" Lucas, a real estate investor of Greek descent, is convinced by his wife Eleni to begin a foster family after she experiences complications with the birth of their daughter. Over the years, they add three black infants to their family, but even love and education are no guarantees all of their children will prosper, particularly with a drug epidemic in the city. Like The Confidential Informant, Pelecanos demonstrates just as much understanding of family dynamics and the effect of drugs on relationships as he does for what's going on in the streets. Five stars.
They named him Spero and brought him home the next day. Upon entering the house, Eleni took a photograph. When it was developed, it showed Spero still in the car seat, Irene and Dimitrius off to the side, Leonidas with his arm around his new baby brother, Van down on one knee, broadly smiling, and Shilo sniffing at the new arrival in the foreground. Behind them, through the double glass doors of the family room, there was a thick wall of clouds, and though it was midday, a light appeared to wink in the gray sky. Van said it was the camera flash reflected in the glass. Eleni claimed it was a start. She would not tell him what she truly believed: that the light was a kind of eye. That there was something out there, watching them and watching over them, this family of six.
-- String Music (from Murder at the Foul Line, 2006). High school student Tonio Harris finds his life threatened from little more than winning a game of pickup basketball. Chased from a nightclub by the losing crew, Tonio crosses paths with Sergeant Peters, a veteran beat cop who knows his hardworking single mother and has been vouched for as being all right. The story alternates points of view between Tonio and Sgt. Peters and builds terrific suspense illuminating a world where wounded pride or the wrong word at the wrong time can end a life. Five stars.
-- When You're Hungry (from Unusual Suspects, 1996). Mexican-American John Moreno, an independent contractor specializing in international retrieval, arrives in Recife, Brazil, to investigate the disappearance of a man spotted in the resort town by a neighbor after the man's wife was awarded a two million life insurance settlement in his death. I love a story about a character good at his or her job and this is one, with Pelecanos demonstrating just as much finesse with a story set in Brazil as he does with those in D.C. The ending grabbed me by the collar. Five stars.
-- Miss Mary's Room. Tim is a white kid who recounts his friendship with another white boy named Pat and Pat's widowed mother, respectfully known as "Miss Mary." Separated from the smart kids and designated "tough kids" early on, Tim and Pat start smoking and peddling weed at age fourteen. Sitting in on a buy with their dealer, their friendship and lives never go back to what they were. This is another story where Pelecanos brings to bear tremendous detail about life on the streets but at the same time, includes a social consciousness and focus on how drugs and violence affect low income families. The ending is another heart wrencher. Five stars.
The police in this county here are all about catching kids in the act of smoking, like it's some kind of high crime. They even got plainclothes Spanish guys, young dudes who look like they could be in high school, busting Latino kids who smoke in the woods. Young black and white police do the same to their own kind. Meantime, if you are one of those nerd boys, you are pretty much safe, even if you partake in the sacrament yourself. The smart kids, the ones who been protected their whole lives, can go off to college and smoke all the weed they want in their dorm rooms. Shit is damn near legal for them. Just like it was for their parents.
-- Plastic Paddy (from Men From Boys, 2003). An unnamed narrator recounts an evening from his youth in the mid-1980s with his buddy Paddy O'Toole, née John Tool, a body shop worker whose major hobbies seem to be Irish culture and blow. After hanging at a pub with college pal of theirs who mocks "Paddy" for his interests as much as temperament, Paddy and the narrator head to Langley Park to score cocaine in a decision that seems disastrously bad from the start. While the aftermath may not be as tragic as some of the other stories, Pelecanos draws such a memorable portrait of Paddy and guys I knew like him in high school. Four stars.
-- The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us (from Measures of Poison, 2002). In the mid-20th century, twenty-eight year old Greek immigrant Bill, née Vasili, recounts his immigration to the U.S. and how blood got under his fingernails. Ultimately finding work as a busman at a fancy hotel, Bill befriends a gregarious white waiter quietly attempting to organize the workers. An ill-tempered new waiter is revealed to be a strike-busting Pinkerton detective and when Bill's co-worker is found in the Potomac, he takes the law into his own hands. Pelecanos brings historical detail, suspense and strong point of view to this story, which might be my favorite. Five stars.
-- The Martini Shot. Victor Ohanian is a writer-producer on a cable TV cop show shooting in a state with generous tax incentives for film production but a rough local element. Between rewrites for the show's diva lead and bouts of compassionate fucking with the show's art director Annette, who Vic is genuinely enamored with as she is of him, he makes inquiries into the shooting death of Skylar Branson, a young Texan who ran the electrical crew and with his girlfriend, sold weed on the side to the crew. This novella bops along with terrific behind-the-scenes detail into TV production and a little criminal intrigue, but the set romance between Vic and Annette is the stand-out. Four stars.
Unlike my marriage, hers had ended voluntarily. Her spouse had been a carpenter who worked on set construction for features. They'd met on a show in Wilmington, North Carolina, when Annette was an assistant in the art department on a Dino De Laurentiis production. Steve had never outgrown his fascination with the muscle car culture of his youth. He'd flipped his vehicle, broke his neck and burned to death in a street race on a foggy two-lane ten years ago. I knew she'd loved him very much. There were many photographs of Steve in her hotel room. She loved him still.
Steve and Annette had not had children, and now, at forty-four, she knew her maternal ship had sailed. Like me, she had become a professional wanderer, a hotel dweller, without roots, a person with tired eyes who worked seventy-hour weeks. It was hardly a healthy atmosphere in which to raise a child.
Film and television productions were like circuses that arrived in town and brought excitement to the locals for a short period of time. We came and went, leaving the straights to their families, their backyard barbecues, their churches, their nine-to-fives. "We've got sawdust in our veins." I'd heard that expression muttered by my co-workers countless times.
George Pelecanos earned his spot in the Screenwriter's Hall of Fame for his work on The Wire, including Season 3 teleplays for "Hamsterdam" and "Slapstick" which dealt with a besieged Baltimore police major who legalizes drugs in his district. If this book is any indication, his fiction is just as strong; fluid prose, honest dialogue, terrific detail into worlds I barely know. I found myself on the same page with Pelecanos on politics, sex and race, particularly how drug laws disproportionately target low income communities. He deals with these three subjects honestly and humanely, as opposed to pretending they don't exist in America.
November 19, 2015
I might have liked this martini more if it came with some blue cheese olives.
One of the things I love about Pelecanos is that he creates a great sense of time and place which makes his characters come alive, and I was slightly worried about reading this collection because I wasn’t sure how well he could pull that off in short stories rather than novels. The way he builds a character by describing the streets they walk, the liquor they drink, the music they hear, and the restaurants they eat in didn’t seem like seemed like something that he could condense down easily.
However, I was pleasantly surprised at just how well he was able to almost instantly create characters you felt like you understood whether it was a middle-aged loser in an inner city trying to get his father’s respect by turning into a confidential informant to the cops or a ruthless insurance investigator chasing a lead to South America.
My favorite aspect was The Martini Shot novella which is the first person account of a TV writer working on a cop show in a rundown city who feels the need to get some justice for a friend who has been murdered. Pelecanos’ has done some TV and film work (Most notably his time as a producer and writer on The Wire.), and he made the whole day-to-day routine of working on a show interesting. He also does some clever stuff with the main character blending the real and fictional together while giving us the idea that he kind of sees himself as the lead in a crime story he’s writing. I’d be more than happy to read an entire book with this setting and character. My only complaint is that the sex scenes provided a graphic amount of detail that seem to cross over into soft core porn. Maybe he was going for some of those 50 Shades of Grey readers.
The short story I liked most provided the background of one Pelecanos' lead characters in a series, Spero Lucas, by telling us how he came to be adopted by his parents and what their family was like when he was a kid. Those are things that have been touched on in the Lucas books, but this added a lot of details that I enjoyed. However, the problem is that like the rest of this collection, it really just made hungry for another Spero Lucas novel.
So while Pelecanos has the ability to write short stories, what I really wanted from almost everything I read here was more. (Except for those sex scenes. Then less would have been better.) It’s like Pelecanos is a great chef who makes entrees that make my mouth water, but here he’s only offering a tray of appetizers. They’re great to pop in your mouth with that martini, but they don’t make for a full meal.
One of the things I love about Pelecanos is that he creates a great sense of time and place which makes his characters come alive, and I was slightly worried about reading this collection because I wasn’t sure how well he could pull that off in short stories rather than novels. The way he builds a character by describing the streets they walk, the liquor they drink, the music they hear, and the restaurants they eat in didn’t seem like seemed like something that he could condense down easily.
However, I was pleasantly surprised at just how well he was able to almost instantly create characters you felt like you understood whether it was a middle-aged loser in an inner city trying to get his father’s respect by turning into a confidential informant to the cops or a ruthless insurance investigator chasing a lead to South America.
My favorite aspect was The Martini Shot novella which is the first person account of a TV writer working on a cop show in a rundown city who feels the need to get some justice for a friend who has been murdered. Pelecanos’ has done some TV and film work (Most notably his time as a producer and writer on The Wire.), and he made the whole day-to-day routine of working on a show interesting. He also does some clever stuff with the main character blending the real and fictional together while giving us the idea that he kind of sees himself as the lead in a crime story he’s writing. I’d be more than happy to read an entire book with this setting and character. My only complaint is that the sex scenes provided a graphic amount of detail that seem to cross over into soft core porn. Maybe he was going for some of those 50 Shades of Grey readers.
The short story I liked most provided the background of one Pelecanos' lead characters in a series, Spero Lucas, by telling us how he came to be adopted by his parents and what their family was like when he was a kid. Those are things that have been touched on in the Lucas books, but this added a lot of details that I enjoyed. However, the problem is that like the rest of this collection, it really just made hungry for another Spero Lucas novel.
So while Pelecanos has the ability to write short stories, what I really wanted from almost everything I read here was more. (Except for those sex scenes. Then less would have been better.) It’s like Pelecanos is a great chef who makes entrees that make my mouth water, but here he’s only offering a tray of appetizers. They’re great to pop in your mouth with that martini, but they don’t make for a full meal.
January 12, 2016
Pelecanos is undeniably one of my favorite authors, so of course I had to jump headfirst into this newly-released collection of his short fiction, although I was already familiar with some of the stories. Fellow fans of the author will find many of his usual strengths on display here: his knack for creating flawed but sympathetic characters, his way with dialogue, and the potent atmosphere that he's able to convey in his urban D.C. environments.
One of the best examples of this is the first story in the collection, and possibly one of Pelecanos's best pieces, "The Confidential Informant." It's about an aging nobody who still lives with his parents, and becomes a CI for a local detective. It's a tale filled with an air of sadness, as the main character is still desperate for his parent's approval and he believes that he's finally found his calling as a snitch. Another story that's just as good, "String Music," follows a teen streetball player, who struggles to find a balance between being tough and being smart on the street. It was also refreshing reading "String Music" during the current atmosphere in the U.S. between the public and police officers. The character of Sergeant Peters is everything that a good cop should be. He's in touch with the community that he polices and has a relationship with people there. So instead of seeing the neighborhood as a place to flex his power and bust heads, he sees it as a place to protect. So kudos to Pelecanos for writing a cop character that can stand as an example for the real ones. These two stories feature some of the best writing that he has done.
One of the things that's always struck me about Pelecanos is the fact that he's probably the only non-black novelist who has a talent for constantly writing complex, honest, and fully realized black characters from the inner city. This can be credited not only to the fact that he's lived all of his life in "Chocolate City," but to what seems to be an acute sensitivity to the people and world around him. It's something I've noticed in all of his work. He can be described the same way the social worker in the short story "Chosen" describes Van and Eleni Lucas (Spero Lucas's adopted parents), who adopt two African-American boys: he never feels over-earnest, or trying too hard to be multicultural. His work feels genuine, unlike someone like Quentin Tarantino, who always seems to be trying too hard.
Most of the stories are solid, with the title novella being the weak link. The story is filled with tons of unnecessary detail about the inner workings of a movie set, to the point where most readers would lose interest. I got a kick out of it because I work in that industry and it was fun to see it written very accurately, but it did make the story much longer than it needed to be. At first, I couldn't understand the main character's motivations for looking into the death of another crew member, but by the end, his motivations are revealed and they're pretty interesting. The ending was satisfying, but the novella would have made a better short story.
I wouldn't recommend readers new to Pelecanos to start here, but it's a great, necessary addition to his work and would definitely recommend it to fans.
"I took the ball and dribbled it up. I knew what I was gonna do, knew exactly where I was gonna go with it, knew wasn't nobody out there could stop me. I wasn't thinkin about Wallace or the stoop of my mom's shoulders or which nigga was gonna be lookin to fuck my baby sister, and I wasn't thinkin on no job or college test or my future or nothin like that.
I was concentratin on droppin that pill through the hole. Watching myself doin it before I did. Out here in the sunshine, every dark thing far away. Runnin ball like I do."
One of the best examples of this is the first story in the collection, and possibly one of Pelecanos's best pieces, "The Confidential Informant." It's about an aging nobody who still lives with his parents, and becomes a CI for a local detective. It's a tale filled with an air of sadness, as the main character is still desperate for his parent's approval and he believes that he's finally found his calling as a snitch. Another story that's just as good, "String Music," follows a teen streetball player, who struggles to find a balance between being tough and being smart on the street. It was also refreshing reading "String Music" during the current atmosphere in the U.S. between the public and police officers. The character of Sergeant Peters is everything that a good cop should be. He's in touch with the community that he polices and has a relationship with people there. So instead of seeing the neighborhood as a place to flex his power and bust heads, he sees it as a place to protect. So kudos to Pelecanos for writing a cop character that can stand as an example for the real ones. These two stories feature some of the best writing that he has done.
One of the things that's always struck me about Pelecanos is the fact that he's probably the only non-black novelist who has a talent for constantly writing complex, honest, and fully realized black characters from the inner city. This can be credited not only to the fact that he's lived all of his life in "Chocolate City," but to what seems to be an acute sensitivity to the people and world around him. It's something I've noticed in all of his work. He can be described the same way the social worker in the short story "Chosen" describes Van and Eleni Lucas (Spero Lucas's adopted parents), who adopt two African-American boys: he never feels over-earnest, or trying too hard to be multicultural. His work feels genuine, unlike someone like Quentin Tarantino, who always seems to be trying too hard.
Most of the stories are solid, with the title novella being the weak link. The story is filled with tons of unnecessary detail about the inner workings of a movie set, to the point where most readers would lose interest. I got a kick out of it because I work in that industry and it was fun to see it written very accurately, but it did make the story much longer than it needed to be. At first, I couldn't understand the main character's motivations for looking into the death of another crew member, but by the end, his motivations are revealed and they're pretty interesting. The ending was satisfying, but the novella would have made a better short story.
I wouldn't recommend readers new to Pelecanos to start here, but it's a great, necessary addition to his work and would definitely recommend it to fans.
"I took the ball and dribbled it up. I knew what I was gonna do, knew exactly where I was gonna go with it, knew wasn't nobody out there could stop me. I wasn't thinkin about Wallace or the stoop of my mom's shoulders or which nigga was gonna be lookin to fuck my baby sister, and I wasn't thinkin on no job or college test or my future or nothin like that.
I was concentratin on droppin that pill through the hole. Watching myself doin it before I did. Out here in the sunshine, every dark thing far away. Runnin ball like I do."
June 5, 2015
George Pelecanos has been on my radar for a short time now seeing his name mentioned off and on as being a screenwriter for ‘The Wire’ and also a crime novel/noir writer of many novels, so when GoodReads offered this short story collection with the title novella (The Martini Shot) included as an ARC giveaway, I thought it would be a good introduction to his catalog.
Being his first published collection of short stories, I must admit that I was enamored by the unique narratives and open-ended style that I enjoyed so much from my trek into the world of Raymond Carver earlier this year.
Throughout each short story, there seems to be an underlying darkness, not necessarily transparent in the beginning, but brought to light as it comes to a halt with the writer’s punctuation mark; you are left to your own thoughts of why, how or somewhere in between.
As I have praised the short story collection, I must also share my antipathy towards the titled novella The Martini Shot. It comprises nearly 1/3 of the contents of said collection and fails to show any type of skill that the previous shared whether it be with creative context, underlying message, etc. It uses just about every cliché when it comes to a story that’s perhaps part noir/part drama and tries to make itself into a harlequin romance from time to time. If this is Pelecanos’s version of taking the piss, he’s done a damn good job of it. The best thing about it is that it’s the last story and not the first. It’ll sell much better that way.
With that said, it’s extremely hard for me to rate this collection as a whole considering what I’ve already said. If I were to break it down, the stories would receive a solid 4 star rating, but I would hate to give this anything remotely so high to deceive the reader. In regards to publishing, this distinctive work of his would’ve been much better as a book of short stories and if someone wanted to make a few extra bucks, feel free to dole out ‘The Martini Shot’ by itself.
Highlights include: The Confidential Informant, String Music and When You’re Hungry.
Being his first published collection of short stories, I must admit that I was enamored by the unique narratives and open-ended style that I enjoyed so much from my trek into the world of Raymond Carver earlier this year.
Throughout each short story, there seems to be an underlying darkness, not necessarily transparent in the beginning, but brought to light as it comes to a halt with the writer’s punctuation mark; you are left to your own thoughts of why, how or somewhere in between.
As I have praised the short story collection, I must also share my antipathy towards the titled novella The Martini Shot. It comprises nearly 1/3 of the contents of said collection and fails to show any type of skill that the previous shared whether it be with creative context, underlying message, etc. It uses just about every cliché when it comes to a story that’s perhaps part noir/part drama and tries to make itself into a harlequin romance from time to time. If this is Pelecanos’s version of taking the piss, he’s done a damn good job of it. The best thing about it is that it’s the last story and not the first. It’ll sell much better that way.
With that said, it’s extremely hard for me to rate this collection as a whole considering what I’ve already said. If I were to break it down, the stories would receive a solid 4 star rating, but I would hate to give this anything remotely so high to deceive the reader. In regards to publishing, this distinctive work of his would’ve been much better as a book of short stories and if someone wanted to make a few extra bucks, feel free to dole out ‘The Martini Shot’ by itself.
Highlights include: The Confidential Informant, String Music and When You’re Hungry.
January 26, 2015
I'd rate this 3.5 stars.
George Pelecanos has been one of my favorite crime writers for a number of years now. I've read everything he's written, and I'm always blown away by the crackling action scenes, his exploration of racial tensions, and his opening up a new perspective on the Washington, DC of the 1970s and 1980s. I also love the complexity of his characters—much like real life, no one is completely good or bad, which makes them tremendously compelling.
The seven stories in Pelecanos' first collection, The Martini Shot boast many of the same characteristics which make his novels so appealing. For the most part, these aren't the happiest of stories, as each of the main characters is struggling with something—addiction, greed, violence, guilt—or often more than one of these. And although you can often figure out the path these stories will take, Pelecanos' writing ability raises them up a notch or two.
Some of my favorites included "Miss Mary's Room," where a young man remembers the carefree days of his youth and a close friendship before crime changed everything; "When You're Hungry," about an insurance investigator who travels to Brazil to find an allegedly dead man, but finds his perfect case closure record may be in jeopardy (among other things); "Plastic Paddy," which illustrates how letting your friends see you vulnerable is never good for your friendship; and "Chosen," which provides some back story on Spero Lucas, a character from a few of Pelecanos' most recent novels. (This story reminded me how I'm more than ready for another Spero Lucas novel—hope that's next from Pelecanos!)
The collection also contains a novella, "The Martini Shot," which goes behind the scenes of a television crime show and follows one of the show's writers (probably loosely based on Pelecanos' own involvement with The Wire ). But this is just more than a you-are-there type of story, as the writer finds himself caught between the woman he loves and the trouble a friend finds himself in. Even though the story was tied up at the end, I found this really interesting, and would have loved to keep reading this.
There wasn't anything I didn't like about the collection; I just wasn't blown away by every story. I felt as if a few duplicated themselves a bit, and some didn't grab me as much the other stories, or other Pelecanos novels, have in the past. His excellent storytelling ability is on display, but some of the stories needed a little more time to develop.
If you've never read anything by George Pelecanos, you need to remedy that. While this collection isn't his best work, it's still a great example of why he's one of my favorite writers—and why I can't wait for his next book to come out, even if it's a year or so away.
See all of my reviews (and other stuff) at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
George Pelecanos has been one of my favorite crime writers for a number of years now. I've read everything he's written, and I'm always blown away by the crackling action scenes, his exploration of racial tensions, and his opening up a new perspective on the Washington, DC of the 1970s and 1980s. I also love the complexity of his characters—much like real life, no one is completely good or bad, which makes them tremendously compelling.
The seven stories in Pelecanos' first collection, The Martini Shot boast many of the same characteristics which make his novels so appealing. For the most part, these aren't the happiest of stories, as each of the main characters is struggling with something—addiction, greed, violence, guilt—or often more than one of these. And although you can often figure out the path these stories will take, Pelecanos' writing ability raises them up a notch or two.
Some of my favorites included "Miss Mary's Room," where a young man remembers the carefree days of his youth and a close friendship before crime changed everything; "When You're Hungry," about an insurance investigator who travels to Brazil to find an allegedly dead man, but finds his perfect case closure record may be in jeopardy (among other things); "Plastic Paddy," which illustrates how letting your friends see you vulnerable is never good for your friendship; and "Chosen," which provides some back story on Spero Lucas, a character from a few of Pelecanos' most recent novels. (This story reminded me how I'm more than ready for another Spero Lucas novel—hope that's next from Pelecanos!)
The collection also contains a novella, "The Martini Shot," which goes behind the scenes of a television crime show and follows one of the show's writers (probably loosely based on Pelecanos' own involvement with The Wire ). But this is just more than a you-are-there type of story, as the writer finds himself caught between the woman he loves and the trouble a friend finds himself in. Even though the story was tied up at the end, I found this really interesting, and would have loved to keep reading this.
There wasn't anything I didn't like about the collection; I just wasn't blown away by every story. I felt as if a few duplicated themselves a bit, and some didn't grab me as much the other stories, or other Pelecanos novels, have in the past. His excellent storytelling ability is on display, but some of the stories needed a little more time to develop.
If you've never read anything by George Pelecanos, you need to remedy that. While this collection isn't his best work, it's still a great example of why he's one of my favorite writers—and why I can't wait for his next book to come out, even if it's a year or so away.
See all of my reviews (and other stuff) at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
December 11, 2015
Bill said, "Let's watch The Wire again," and I said, "Let's watch a show we haven't seen yet," and then we watched the first episode of the first season & I said, "Let's watch all five seasons now!" I didn't know who George Pelecanos was the last time we watched it, but oh boy do I want to give him a piece of my mind after this marathon-go-around. He wrote the episode where Wallace dies! And the one where Frank goes to talk to The Greek & he gets that phone call from that damned FBI agent while Frank is walking up, & you didn't need to wait for next week to know what that meant. Apparently he's written all the penultimate episodes, which as anyone who's watched The Wire can tell you is when all the really awful shit goes down. Wallace! I've watched that first season a minimum of ten times & I still have to gather my strength to watch that scene. Anyway, I never would've felt that I could've shaken my fist at Pelecanos back in the day even if I would have known he was the writer, but now I've read almost all of his books & I feel like I know him well enough to do so at this point. Which has nothing to do with this book, but here we are.
Not many writers can make ten pages meaty enough or give their characters enough weight in such a short time that I'll feel strongly about what happens to them, and I don't know that Pelecanos succeeds that well at it, but this is neither better nor worse than I expected it to be. I don't think that short story is his best format, but he's a great writer otherwise and that's okay. I brought this home & returned it twice without reading it and I'd like to credit my subconscious with knowing that now would be the right time even though my subconscious isn't that smart (have been trying to explain 'coincidence' to my son & I think this might be one of those times), since "The Martini Shot" itself is about a guy who works as a writer on a crime show, so it was nice to picture Pelecanos on the set as I read, whether or not that's what he intended.
Not many writers can make ten pages meaty enough or give their characters enough weight in such a short time that I'll feel strongly about what happens to them, and I don't know that Pelecanos succeeds that well at it, but this is neither better nor worse than I expected it to be. I don't think that short story is his best format, but he's a great writer otherwise and that's okay. I brought this home & returned it twice without reading it and I'd like to credit my subconscious with knowing that now would be the right time even though my subconscious isn't that smart (have been trying to explain 'coincidence' to my son & I think this might be one of those times), since "The Martini Shot" itself is about a guy who works as a writer on a crime show, so it was nice to picture Pelecanos on the set as I read, whether or not that's what he intended.
December 14, 2021
George and I had kids together in a preschool in Silver Spring Maryland a long time ago before he got rich and famous! My daughter from then just turned 29 so you know what really was a long time ago.
I loved George Pelecanos when I first ran into his books because they were sad in the heart of Silver Spring where we lived with familiar street names and locations. It was kind of fun and I bought all his books. And then I moved away from Silver Spring but kept reading all of his books and buying them. Now at the age of 75 I have switched to audible books and I’m selling all the books off of my personal bookshelf on eBay. I wish George was a little bit more popular and people would buy his used books from me! I don’t know if he really has become rich and famous since writing for the cable series The Wire. But I sent him a letter recently reminding him of our connections And hoping he would help give some publicity to the documentary film The Pacifist that I am involved with. I guess he must be rich and famous because he didn’t write back!
This is the first book of his that I have read in quite a long time and the first book of short stories that I can remember ever reading of his. It was fun to listen to and it made me wonder how he came by all this detail information that is included. The longest story included a lot of details about how people worked in shooting serial cable TV shows. I could see where he got that detail. But lots of other information in the short stories made me think maybe he has done some international travel at least in Central America.
These stories are a lot different from his books that I was reading 20+ years ago. There was some DC connection occasionally but the characters and the stories were not quite the same. But I definitely enjoyed listening to them most of the time.
I loved George Pelecanos when I first ran into his books because they were sad in the heart of Silver Spring where we lived with familiar street names and locations. It was kind of fun and I bought all his books. And then I moved away from Silver Spring but kept reading all of his books and buying them. Now at the age of 75 I have switched to audible books and I’m selling all the books off of my personal bookshelf on eBay. I wish George was a little bit more popular and people would buy his used books from me! I don’t know if he really has become rich and famous since writing for the cable series The Wire. But I sent him a letter recently reminding him of our connections And hoping he would help give some publicity to the documentary film The Pacifist that I am involved with. I guess he must be rich and famous because he didn’t write back!
This is the first book of his that I have read in quite a long time and the first book of short stories that I can remember ever reading of his. It was fun to listen to and it made me wonder how he came by all this detail information that is included. The longest story included a lot of details about how people worked in shooting serial cable TV shows. I could see where he got that detail. But lots of other information in the short stories made me think maybe he has done some international travel at least in Central America.
These stories are a lot different from his books that I was reading 20+ years ago. There was some DC connection occasionally but the characters and the stories were not quite the same. But I definitely enjoyed listening to them most of the time.
February 17, 2015
Have I said before that I love Pelecanos?? I might have. That aside, this book was somewhat disappointing. Most of the short stories were pretty good, with a couple being well above average. However, the novella, THE MARTINI SHOT, was just a step above awful. Pelecanos should not write sex scenes. He's not good at it. His sex scenes actually make me laugh. He writes noir mysteries like nobody's business. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he's one of the 5 or 6 best doing it today, but PLEASE, leave the sex alone!
April 10, 2015
I really like the economy of Pelecanos's prose. Dug most of the short stories but the novella didn't do anything for me.
Read
May 20, 2021Most of the stories are fine, but the novella at the end really bothered me.
It was raging with misogyny for really no reason at all. An actress on the show the protag is working on is called very gendered slurs and just overall painted as terrible to work with because she is vocal about the sexism of how her character is written. Another actress isn't painted quite so viciously, but same thing. There's a line she doesn't want to say because it doesn't fit with her character and it's just sexist.
This is frustrating in itself, but especially reading this now, when we know how Hollywood operates (by that, I mean predatory men like Weinstein get to paint women as bitches or difficult to work with when they don't toe the line). I hated reading the novella because of it, but thinking about it more and more really pisses me off. Especially because Pelecanos works or has worked in television, because it's certainly not a new phenomenon.
None of that is even touching on the cop stuff, which, acknowledging corruption and inequality within the system just...again, reading it now, I had very little patience for it.
It was raging with misogyny for really no reason at all. An actress on the show the protag is working on is called very gendered slurs and just overall painted as terrible to work with because she is vocal about the sexism of how her character is written. Another actress isn't painted quite so viciously, but same thing. There's a line she doesn't want to say because it doesn't fit with her character and it's just sexist.
This is frustrating in itself, but especially reading this now, when we know how Hollywood operates (by that, I mean predatory men like Weinstein get to paint women as bitches or difficult to work with when they don't toe the line). I hated reading the novella because of it, but thinking about it more and more really pisses me off. Especially because Pelecanos works or has worked in television, because it's certainly not a new phenomenon.
None of that is even touching on the cop stuff, which, acknowledging corruption and inequality within the system just...again, reading it now, I had very little patience for it.
September 11, 2023
Comprising seven short stories and the novella, The Martini Shot, this collection is perfect for fans of Pelecanos' novels (Stefanos and Spero Lucas feature to an extent). The Confidential Informant reads like an episode pulled from the Wire an sets the tone for the collection; there's no happy endings here, just straight-laced noir full of heartache and headshots.
Plastic Paddy and Miss Mary's Room are cut from that same Confidential Informant cloth and are great vinaigrettes heading into the novella to round out the collection.
As for the title story itself, it wasn't what I was expecting, though not to say I didn't enjoy it because I did. The pace was much slower than the short stories and the overall tone was more Criminal Intent than The Wire. Still a lot of fun and well worth picking up.
Plastic Paddy and Miss Mary's Room are cut from that same Confidential Informant cloth and are great vinaigrettes heading into the novella to round out the collection.
As for the title story itself, it wasn't what I was expecting, though not to say I didn't enjoy it because I did. The pace was much slower than the short stories and the overall tone was more Criminal Intent than The Wire. Still a lot of fun and well worth picking up.
August 12, 2024
Good solid page turning crime fiction. Reminded me of Lawrence Block. A Great pleasure, with some porn thrown in for good measure!
June 24, 2019
While there is a fantastic novella in this collection-the titled Martini Shot-the rest of the short stories here are middling at best. While reading this collection of shorts, I realized something. There are people who can write short stories, people who can write full-length novels, and then, there's that rare breed of writer who can do both with equal effectiveness. Pelecanos, unfortunately, is not that rare breed. The full-length novel is his bread and butter, and after reading this collection of stories, he should probably stay with that.
July 21, 2024
A well crafted collection of short stories that dive into the gritty world of crime and human struggle. Exactly what I want when reading a Pelecanos book. A very underrated crime fiction writer.
June 9, 2017
Pelacanos grew up in D.C. and his books are filled with urban grittiness and the dialogues he heard growing up in his father's diner. "The Martini Shot" is his first collection of shorts, seven short stories and the title novella. Many of these stories have been published before, just not together as a collection. These stories share a sad, grittiness of life in the big city and are filled with rich, deep characters like the police snitch who thinks he found his calling, but still lives in his ailing father's house compared to his successful brother. They are filled with characters like the couple who wanted a companion for their only child and couldn't stop adopting kids and wondered if they lived successful lives. Other stories are about guys playing pickup basketball, trying to determine how to act tough, but not get killed in the process. There are also stories about guys who absconded to South America and guys who get caught back home and wonder who they can trust. "Martini Shot" is the last shot of the day before you take a break from filming and head out for martinis. This story is a change of pace and location for Pelecanos taking his storytelling out of the city streets and urban world onto a Hollywood film set with directors making time with crew members and petty disputes among the stars and, oh yeah, there's a body. This story is a bit underwhelming compared to the others in this collection, but it does show the range of this author. Overall, this is a fine collection and should appeal to Pelacanos' fans and those looking to take a peek at his D.C. world.
February 16, 2015
From USA TODAY:
The Martini Shot
By George Pelecanos
Little, Brown, 304 pp.
***1/2 out of four
Art with a social mission is usually bad; art with a curiosity about social problems can be both absorbing and immensely valuable. That was the lesson of the transcendent show The Wire, which George Pelecanos helped write and produce, and the best stories in this collection of shorter fiction follow it. Two are truly lovely: "The Confidential Informant," about a man too gentle and shambling for criminal life, and "String Music," about a teenager whose future could go either way, and the cop who tries to spare him from the decisive moment for at least another day. Pelecanos is a significantly weaker writer when he has a point to make – as in "When You're Hungry," a pat morality play about a bounty hunter in Brazil – but he's always readable. And when he offers us a glimpse of the choiceless choices of the inner city in places such as Baltimore and Washington, D.C., he can touch greatness.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/bo...
The Martini Shot
By George Pelecanos
Little, Brown, 304 pp.
***1/2 out of four
Art with a social mission is usually bad; art with a curiosity about social problems can be both absorbing and immensely valuable. That was the lesson of the transcendent show The Wire, which George Pelecanos helped write and produce, and the best stories in this collection of shorter fiction follow it. Two are truly lovely: "The Confidential Informant," about a man too gentle and shambling for criminal life, and "String Music," about a teenager whose future could go either way, and the cop who tries to spare him from the decisive moment for at least another day. Pelecanos is a significantly weaker writer when he has a point to make – as in "When You're Hungry," a pat morality play about a bounty hunter in Brazil – but he's always readable. And when he offers us a glimpse of the choiceless choices of the inner city in places such as Baltimore and Washington, D.C., he can touch greatness.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/bo...
April 26, 2015
When he's good, he's very good. Gets ghetto, underclass life in D.C. and environs with sympathy, sharpness and smarts. The title piece is excellent, too - he obviously knows his Hollywood scene. The less said about the depiction of the female characters the better, though. Apart from that, this is great - it's worth reading for the descriptions of the mean streets around the Soldier's Home in outer D.C. alone.
March 2, 2015
For the reader who wants to complete the entire Pelecanos list, this fits well, provides background on his actors, and is typically readable. While it was not compelling to me, it was a general pleasure. The title novella, because the territory is more spacious and the characters can deepen, is best.
March 19, 2016
The back cover lists four positive quotes, one which states that the author ‘has a way with words’. However, I was put off from the start with extensive inclusion of many common American low life words and phrases that I find obnoxious, such as ‘motherfucker’ and descriptions ending with ‘like that shit’. I therefore consider this book as rubbish and rate it with a single star.
January 12, 2015
Very powerful short stories. The novella had a bit too much sex in it, I thought, but otherwise was also well written and a fascinating look into the nomadic life of TV writers and crew members.
January 27, 2015
As a long time fan of Pelecanos I was looking forward to reading this, his first collection of short stories which also includes a novella, The Martini Shot, from where this collection gets its title. Some of the stories felt familiar and I'm sure I've read some of them before, when published in their original collections. However they include the familiar assortment of Pelicans characters, ordinary stiffs down on their luck, small time criminals, cops and young adults all trying to manoeuvre their way through the harsh reality of inner city life. No matter how unlikeable the characters are, Pelecanos has the knack of making you feel empathy for the character and the situation they find themselves in and I always hope for the best but expect the worst for the individual outcomes.
The main novella itself is obviously based on Pelecanos's own experiences working as a writer on TV shows such as The Wire and Treme and tells the story of a writer/producer working on a cop TV series. The story enlightened me as to what goes on 'on set', who does what and how the decisions of the various executives impacts on the day to day shooting of the scenes. The main protagonist gets caught up in a real life crime drama following the death of one of his friends and fellow co-worker. Pelecanos uses the script from the show to illustrate what the actors lines are during the various scenes and he also employs this 'trick' to describe the dialogue between himself and various other characters. I also enjoyed how the writer picks up on slang terms used by others and then works them into his own scripts.
Although having read some of the stories before e I did enjoy this collection, as they didn't disappoint and are up to Pelecanos's usual high standard. Looking forward to his next novel and it'll be interesting to see where he goes from here and whether it'll be a new Spero Lucas novel or if there is a new protagonist in the pipeline.
The main novella itself is obviously based on Pelecanos's own experiences working as a writer on TV shows such as The Wire and Treme and tells the story of a writer/producer working on a cop TV series. The story enlightened me as to what goes on 'on set', who does what and how the decisions of the various executives impacts on the day to day shooting of the scenes. The main protagonist gets caught up in a real life crime drama following the death of one of his friends and fellow co-worker. Pelecanos uses the script from the show to illustrate what the actors lines are during the various scenes and he also employs this 'trick' to describe the dialogue between himself and various other characters. I also enjoyed how the writer picks up on slang terms used by others and then works them into his own scripts.
Although having read some of the stories before e I did enjoy this collection, as they didn't disappoint and are up to Pelecanos's usual high standard. Looking forward to his next novel and it'll be interesting to see where he goes from here and whether it'll be a new Spero Lucas novel or if there is a new protagonist in the pipeline.
June 2, 2015
Short stories are the training ground where many writers hone their craft. George Pelcanos has been perfecting his craft over the course of nineteen novels and The Martini Shot marks his first collection of short fiction with a dazzling array of pieces that stand strong on their own.
Running throughout many of the stories characters fight for respectability, especially Verdon, whose desperate attempt collides with the high stakes reality of being a snitch, in “The Confidential Informant”.
“Chosen” spans decades telling the story of a successful Greek couple as they expand their family through the adoption of four children with diverse backgrounds. Their successes and struggles growing as a family are compressed into the confines of this story but help fill in the background of Spero Lucas, one of Pelecanos’ beloved protagonists.
The dueling first person narrators in “String Music” shape a sweaty narrative shared between a talented, self-aware kid grappling with the unintended consequences of showing up the neighborhood dealer in a pick up game, and a beat cop who hopes to stifle the all too familiar signs of violence in the air.
Fans of Pelecanos’ television work will take particular delight in the title story, a novella set with in the last days of production on a cop show where the murder of a crew member gives one of the shows writers cause to get involved. It’s a playful, Easter Egg laden riff that delightfully merges the two sides of Pelecanos’ writing career and it’s a perfect capper to an entertaining collection.
from my review in Crimespree Magazine #59
Running throughout many of the stories characters fight for respectability, especially Verdon, whose desperate attempt collides with the high stakes reality of being a snitch, in “The Confidential Informant”.
“Chosen” spans decades telling the story of a successful Greek couple as they expand their family through the adoption of four children with diverse backgrounds. Their successes and struggles growing as a family are compressed into the confines of this story but help fill in the background of Spero Lucas, one of Pelecanos’ beloved protagonists.
The dueling first person narrators in “String Music” shape a sweaty narrative shared between a talented, self-aware kid grappling with the unintended consequences of showing up the neighborhood dealer in a pick up game, and a beat cop who hopes to stifle the all too familiar signs of violence in the air.
Fans of Pelecanos’ television work will take particular delight in the title story, a novella set with in the last days of production on a cop show where the murder of a crew member gives one of the shows writers cause to get involved. It’s a playful, Easter Egg laden riff that delightfully merges the two sides of Pelecanos’ writing career and it’s a perfect capper to an entertaining collection.
from my review in Crimespree Magazine #59
May 27, 2024
Una scrittura quella di pelecanos da grande della letteratura americana al di là del genere crime o non crime. Racconti quali l’informatore, scelto, quando hai fame che sembrano usciti dalla tavolozza di un pittore piuttosto che da quello di uno scrittore . C’è tutta l’America più violenta, quella dei bassifondi, quella della morte “regalata “ per soldi, per la droga o per uno sguardo o per le cattive compagnie come sempre non c’è redenzione nè una via di uscita ma la grandezza di pelecanos è quella di restituire gli ambienti, i luoghi con una capacità ed un “verismo “ che sfiora la perfezione: tutto funziona e tutto è tragicamente attraente.
March 2, 2015
This collection is the first Pelecanos I've read and what impressed me most was the strong and seemingly authentic narrative voice he gave his characters. He accomplished this primarily with an avalanche of specific details: the world as seen from the character's point of view. We notice what they notice and the voice becomes contaminated with those details; becomes real in the only way that fiction can, it is created. The stories were not really structured as stories, but they are definitely strong voices telling a story. The title novella is a different animal. It's a noir about a TV writer - the noir everyman protagonist, as it were - but we don't know it's a noir until we are quite deep into the novella, in fact we don't even know what might be going on until we are a quarter of the way in because the first part is all pretty much day-in-a-life description of what's like to be working on the set of a TV series, including late night sex with a co-worker. The story gets interesting as the noir elements make their way to the forefront. And it also gets a little weird at times because scenes will suddenly drop into script format, and at times the scenes seem like they are obviously aping the TV crime writing, so Pelecanos - the TV crime series writer - is having his fun with us, but I didn't mind because he pulled it off.
May 2, 2015
The best part of this collection is Pelecanos's mixture of voices (though always male?) -- African American youth, white cop, Greek immigrant, etc. The plots generally aren't tricky or snappy, but Pelecanos sustains the intensity with building dread, sharp scenes, and strong dialogue. A few of the stories are weaker, notably the ones not in first person. "Chosen," which originally accompanied the ebook version "The Cut" (with new series character Spero Lucas) feels a bit like a character background, a setting up of threads for future novels perhaps, but not really a story.
The titular novella, "Martini Shot," is a departure. Instead of a cop or criminal or wayward youth, the narrator is a TV writer working on a crime show -- a quasi stand-in for Pelecanos in a playful way. The story has some bits formatted like script dialogue -- one part of the way the novella is a send-up of and formal match to a TV episode. The crime-solving arguably falls into place a little too easily -- but that's how a lot of cop shows have to work as well (to wrap up in an hour). It also has a (sometimes gratuitous?) mix of romance, sex, secondary cast, and so on of a TV show.
I'll note in passing that one story, "The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us," originally appeared in the 2002 collection called "Measures of Poison," where I had my debut story, "Fire Lines."
The titular novella, "Martini Shot," is a departure. Instead of a cop or criminal or wayward youth, the narrator is a TV writer working on a crime show -- a quasi stand-in for Pelecanos in a playful way. The story has some bits formatted like script dialogue -- one part of the way the novella is a send-up of and formal match to a TV episode. The crime-solving arguably falls into place a little too easily -- but that's how a lot of cop shows have to work as well (to wrap up in an hour). It also has a (sometimes gratuitous?) mix of romance, sex, secondary cast, and so on of a TV show.
I'll note in passing that one story, "The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us," originally appeared in the 2002 collection called "Measures of Poison," where I had my debut story, "Fire Lines."
May 5, 2015
I haven't read George Pelecanos, the award-winning writer/producer of The Wire before but I am glad I read Martini Shot, his novella and stories. Why?
1) for the title story - "The Martini Shot" - a layered look, at television writing. Gritty. Inside. Yet, yet, multi-layered, emotional. If you are thinking: I'd love to write for a television drama — read this now.
2) I also liked "The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us," his Greek immigrant story set at the turn of the last century-- a tale of rough form of American justice and "Chose," which though placed first in the book feels like the follow up to "The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us."
3) Read this for the dialogue, for the pacing, for the punch at the end.
If you are looking for a fast but insightful read, I'd highly recommend The Martini Shot.
Of course, I got to suggest reading BEFORE MY EYES, my new novel, if you haven't read it yet.
Before My Eyes
1) for the title story - "The Martini Shot" - a layered look, at television writing. Gritty. Inside. Yet, yet, multi-layered, emotional. If you are thinking: I'd love to write for a television drama — read this now.
2) I also liked "The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us," his Greek immigrant story set at the turn of the last century-- a tale of rough form of American justice and "Chose," which though placed first in the book feels like the follow up to "The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us."
3) Read this for the dialogue, for the pacing, for the punch at the end.
If you are looking for a fast but insightful read, I'd highly recommend The Martini Shot.
Of course, I got to suggest reading BEFORE MY EYES, my new novel, if you haven't read it yet.
Before My Eyes
January 19, 2015
The short stories are okay, but the novella -- as a few people here already pointed out -- is useless.
I guess there could be some use for it, if you ever wanted to know what it's like on the set of one of those HBO series. According to some young guy, Pelecanos' account is pretty accurate.
But the actual crime part of the story is laughably implausible, to the point you wonder if Pelecanos' brain isn't beginning to grow a thin candy shell, and the sex stuff is right out of Hustler magazine or some shit, including a vivid description of "snowballing."
Tell me he isn't writing from experience.
I guess there could be some use for it, if you ever wanted to know what it's like on the set of one of those HBO series. According to some young guy, Pelecanos' account is pretty accurate.
But the actual crime part of the story is laughably implausible, to the point you wonder if Pelecanos' brain isn't beginning to grow a thin candy shell, and the sex stuff is right out of Hustler magazine or some shit, including a vivid description of "snowballing."
Tell me he isn't writing from experience.
January 14, 2015
Pelecanos may very well be my favorite writer currently publishing books. Granted I'm a hometown homer, but I truly enjoy his unique blend of wit, attention to detail, & various pop culture references. After reading the first story, I was a little disappointed because it had been previously published as his entry in the DC Noir series 8 years prior. However, following that story I found nothing but delight in the various other stories told. Definitely a great read!
January 9, 2015
My favorite writer confirms he is the heir-apparent to Elmore Leonard in this collection of short noir. Sharp, polished, sexy little gems, written as always with an authentic ear to the street and a true sense of place.
Should just change his jacket blurb to "George Pelecanos is the best crime writer alive today."
Should just change his jacket blurb to "George Pelecanos is the best crime writer alive today."
July 14, 2022
Brilliant, Pelecanos writes liquid gold. Every story in this collection was amazing, my only complaint was the last story ran a little long. Other then that I felt like every story was similar but in a good way. The amount of tough guys pissing their pants and moaning about women really make this collection shine. Favorite story- 'When You're Hungry'
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