I've heard a lot of good things about Pelecanos and so I was eager to read some of his work. This one has a pretty good reputation, high ratings etc. so I expected big things. I don't think it managed to live up to the hype.

Perhaps if I hadn't seen The Wire the imagery used and the life portrayed within it's pages would have been that much more powerful, however as it is I felt that they took the ideas put forward in this book and went further, deeper and generally made the show pack more of a punch than Pelecanos could squeeze in to these pages.

There were some interesting characters to get to know, despite what seemed like a new character being intoduced every chpater and from what I've read they're all from the novels written prior to this one. SOmething to look out for fer sure.

Aside from the constant ramblings about basketball (a sport I care very little for) this was a tightly written, entertaining, urban drama dealing with aspects of society that in general we wish we could avoid; drugs, guns, poverty and violence are all portrayed without glamour and in a quite visceral manner.

Not as good as I was hoping but I'll definitely give him another shot.