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George Pelecanos

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The Night Gardener Paperback – June 10, 2009

by George Pelecanos (Author)

4.2 468 ratings

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Gus Ramone is "good police," a former Internal Affairs investigator now working homicide for the city's Violent Crime branch. His new case involves the death of a local teenager named Asa whose body has been found in a local community garden. The murder unearths intense memories of a case Ramone worked as a patrol cop twenty years earlier, when he and his partner, Dan "Doc" Holiday, assisted a legendary detective named T. C. Cook.

The series of murders, all involving local teenage victims, was never solved. In the years since, Holiday has left the force under a cloud of morals charges, and now finds work as a bodyguard and driver. Cook has retired, but he has never stopped agonizing about the "Night Gardener" killings.The new case draws the three men together on a grim mission to finish the work that has haunted them for years. All the love, regret, and anger that once burned between them comes rushing back, and old ghosts walk once more as the men try to lay to rest the monster who has stalked their dreams.

Bigger and even more unstoppable than his previous thrillers, George Pelecanos achieves in The Night Gardener what his brilliant career has been building toward: a novel that is a perfect union of suspense, character, and unstoppable fate.

Print length

372 pages
Language

English
Publication date

June 10, 2009
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.01 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

0316056502
ISBN-13

978-0316056502
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Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR THE NIGHT GARDENER:

"Like Drama City it is heart-in-your-throat gripping from beginning to end, The Night Gardener is another of Mr. Pelecanos's beautifully delineated moral tales, filled with gut-wrenching turns of fate and razor-sharp, boisterously vivid characters."―Janet Maslin, New York Times

"The Night Gardener can be read as a police procedural hipper but just as good as those of the late, great Ed McBain. But it is also a wise, textured examination of life in urban America, as sophisticated as the best work of Richard Price....[Pelecanos's] last book, Drama City, is a masterpiece of American crime fiction; The Night Gardener is even better."―Associated Press

"Mr. Pelecanos...is part of a fraternity of writers, including Dennis Lehane and Richard Price, who push the boundaries of crime writing into literary territory, exploring character more deeply than many crime novelists dare, introducing challenging social themes and bucking expectations that everything will come out all right in the end."―Motoko Rich, New York Times

"Perhaps the greatest living American crime writer."―Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

About the Author

George Pelecanos is the bestselling author of twenty novels set in and around Washington, D.C. He is also an independent film producer, and a producer and Emmy-nominated writer on the HBO series The Wire, Treme, and The Deuce. He lives in Maryland.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (June 10, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 372 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316056502
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316056502
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.01 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,347,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #5,181 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- #8,941 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Books)
- #17,096 in Murder Thrillers

Customer Reviews:
4.2 468 ratings

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George Pelecanos

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George P. Pelecanos was born in Washington, DC in 1957. His first novel was published in 1992 and alongside his consequential success as an author, he has also worked as producer, writer and story editor for the acclaimed and award-winning US crime series, The Wire. His writing for the show earned him an Emmy nomination.

He is the author of fifteen crime novels set in and around Washington, DC. The Big Blowdown was the recipient of the International Crime Novel of the Year award in both Germany and Japan; King Suckerman was shortlisted for the Gold Dagger Award in the UK. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire and the collections Unusual Suspects and Best American Mystery Stories of 1997. He is an award-winning journalist and pop-culture essayist who has written for the Washington Post.

Pelecanos can also claim credit for involvement in the production of several feature films. Most recently, as a screenwriter for film, he has written an adaptation of King Suckerman for Dimension Films, and was co-writer on the Paid in Full.

His novel Right as Rain is currently in development with director Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential, Wonder Boys) and Warner Brothers. He is a writer on the upcoming World War II miniseries The Pacific, to be produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and HBO. Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with his wife and three children. He is at work on his next novel.

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4.2 out of 5

468 global ratings

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Dave S.

Conflict is the stuff of drama.

Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2010

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The Night Gardener is an excellent book. It is a great book for the same reasons that The Wire, for which Pelecanos wrote, is a great television show. While it is set against the crime drama framework, underneath it is actually about something much larger than the crime being depicted.

An important distinction needs to be made here. The Night Gardener is not a mystery. It is not a thriller. It is not even a police procedural, in the traditional sense. The Night Gardener is a tragedy and a crime drama with a dose of social commentary (as all good crime dramas have). The serial killer aspect described in the synopsis is practically a subplot. It is not a book where the question, "What is it about?" can be answered by just giving a synopsis of the plot. It is not a book where `thought-provoking' means the reader will be trying to pick up contradictions in the stories of the witnesses, trying to figure out which clues are important and how they may lead the detective to the criminal, or trying to solve the crime before the main characters. If you're just looking for a thriller, or a mystery, or a story where every sentence is bringing you one step closer to solving the crime, then The Night Gardener isn't for you.

As an example, in one scene Gus Ramone (one of the cops investigating the death of a kid) gets a phone call because something interesting was discovered in the ballistics report from the bullet that killed the kid. In a typical mystery/thriller Gus would have drove back to the station, confirmed the findings in the report, and gone out to find the suspect. In The Night Gardener, Gus thanks the caller for the information, goes home, grabs a bite to eat, kisses his kids goodnight, crawls into bed with his wife, and deals with the ballistics report in the morning.

The important parts of The Night Gardener happen when the crime is not being dealt with. One of the major themes in the book is about personal identity. Specifically, what is it that defines us? Is it where we live? Our ethnicity? Our job? Who our friends are? It is all of those things, plus a lot more. But above all else, it is our family. What The Night Gardener does is it takes those things that define us, pits them against the problems of the society that we live in, and lets the conflict play out... for better or for worse.

As with any book by Pelecanos, the writing is excellent. The characters feel fully developed and the dialogue sounds natural. This is a great book and I highly recommend it.

4 people found this helpful

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Kevin Currie-Knight

An Entertaining and Literary Police Thriller

Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2009

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Several other reviewers recount the plot of this character-driven cop drama, so I will not be redundant and repeat them. Instead, I want to discuss the reasons I did and did not like this book.

First, it is rare to find as "literary" a writer of thrillers as George Pelacanos. Where many thrillers have shallow characters, Pelacanos's are thought through quite well and multidimensional. Where many thrillers' dialogue is often quite cliche and unbelievable, Pelacanos writes as people actually talk. It makes the story very easy to visualize. And he does not, as many writers do, over-rely on dialogue. There is just enough to provide good forward motion without feeling choppy.

I also liked how Night Gardener is driven primarily by the character and, only then, by the plot line. The plot is quite engaging, as we watch the lives of several people (a cop, a retired cop, a disgraced cop, a drug dealer, etc.) intersect over the murder of a teenaged boy who, it turns out, harbors secrets of his own. Each life is affected in a slightly different way, and Pelacanos's weaving of characters around this boy's story is well thought out and very readable.

What I did not like about the book - in retrospect - was the very anti-climactic ending. While the plot is quite moving, I get the impression, after reading, that Pelacanos was not sure how to end the story; as a result, the story which should have ended with a bang ended with a strange flicker. It didn't kill the book, but it detracted from my opinion of it in hindsight.

Overall, I do reccomend this book for those who want the more "literary" side of cop thrillers.

Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2022

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It's OK for the most part -- good story, but the plot kind of falls apart late in the book as a mystery is solved a few chapters before the end, and is completely tangential to the main plot. Pelecanos says Elmore Leonard was an inspiration for him, but he's not up to Leonard as a detective novelist, at least not in this 2006 book. He was a major contributor to David Simon's The Wire and Treme, and he co-created The Deuce and We Own This City, so he's no slouch. Maybe he hadn't hit his stride with this one yet - I read it was a new style for him. Too much didactic speechifying. Overall though kept me entertained. I bought the Kindle version for 1.99, which is good for a 16-year-old novel, but I see the price has now been jacked up to 9.99, and in fact all his books seem to be 9.99 in Kindle version, more even than hardback. Maybe I got a teaser price -- but I wasn't impressed enough to buy any more of his books until the price becomes a lot more reasonable.

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Top reviews from other countries

frank malone

Great book

Reviewed in Canada on December 7, 2018

Verified Purchase

Pelecanos speaks with an unparalleled voice

A. Murdoch

New direction,same high standard

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 25, 2006

Verified Purchase

I have just made a start into rereading GP's back catalogue and got through the Nick Stefanos trilogy when I got this. I kind of enjoyed Nick and the Quinn/Strange partnership but really got sucked into this one very quickly. Like Ian Rankin or James Lee Burke, Pelecanos draws you in and tells a fantastic story while making some valid social commentary.

This book would work for either the experienced GP reader or would make a great starting point.

Long story short - a great story well written.

19 people found this helpful

Billy Joel Osment

A small scale epic crime novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 1, 2023

Verified Purchase

I've read a bunch of Pelecanos books before and they're enjoyable but never tipped over into great for me. This one does. It all comes together and paints a vivid portrait of DC and the different characters. He has a cool touch and style, not overtly flashy but still very much his own.

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada on November 28, 2015

Verified Purchase

Great story line and characters, draws you in, excellent finish.

Colin

Excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 15, 2015

Verified Purchase

If you know Pelecanos then you'll know what to expect; if you don't then you're missing out and you should start reading him immediately.

I'm a big fan and this is one of his best.

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