Country: USA
Genre: Hardboiled
Pages: 332
If you have watched a little five season HBO series titled THE WIRE, you know who George Pelecanos is. In fact, you have probably seen his name times and times again in the credits. He's one of the famous crime writers along with Dennis Lehane, Richard Price and Ed Burns, who have collaborated with David Simon, the creator of this haunting piece of television. On a cold and rainy book shopping day, roaming the aisles, I had decided to give a try to Mr. Pelecanos' novels because I didn't have anything better to do that day. The first title that caught my attention was HELL TO PAY, in the Strange/Quinn PI series, so I decided to give a go to RIGHT AS RAIN, which is the first of the four novels of the cycle. Something in the titles of those books grabbed me by the guts. RIGHT AS RAIN, HELL TO PAY, SOUL CIRCUS, HARD REVOLUTION, fuckin' righteous, right? So are the novels living up to their tightly wrapped, neato presentation?
That's another story.
It's not that it's particularly bad, but RIGHT AS RAIN is stretched out so thin, it always leaves you one foot out of the novel. There are multiple narrative threads here. First, the story of Derek Strange, an ex-cop now turned private investigator that's mandated by the mother of a dead policeman to investigate the circumstance of her son's demise. The catch is that he's been killed by another policeman in service, who was himself exonerated from all blame. That other policeman is Terry Quinn, who gets his own storyline or almost. Doubt is still casting a shadow over his mind, so he's soon offering Derek Strange a helping hand in his investigation. There is also another storyline involving Earle and Ray, respectively father and son, who are on their way to Washington D.C for an impending drug deal. I don't know about you, dear readers, but I'm somehow fed up with reading about the random drug dealing losers. But I sucked it up, telling myself that it had to be linked to the story somehow.
While there is nothing that profoundly annoyed me in RIGHT AS RAIN, there are little things that kept bugging me throughout the reading, like bumps and cracks on an old-beat up road. First, there are those lengthy scenes where Strange and Quinn are taking care of their respective lovers. That makes them endearing characters for sure, but it has absolutely no incidence on the stakes of the story. The first ones are cute, but it becomes a drag, because the story loses focus. You're getting caught in the not-so-special lives of Derek Strange and Terry Quinn and you lose sight of what they are really after. The drug deal intrigue is also problematic because it's taking all the little streets instead of taking the highway. When you get something as mundane as a drug deal in your novel, just PLEASE cut to the basics.
But, George Pelecanos is a very good writer, so no matter how lost in the woods he seems to be, he always finds the trail. Because the main mystery is really good. The death of police officer Chris Wilson is every bit as puzzling when the shooter himself doesn't really know why he shot one of his colleagues like that. That's a great premise to start with. There are many circles drawn around it, but Pelecanos comes back to the point and delivers the goods. RIGHT AS RAIN was a good hardboiled novel, but it suffers from a lack of focus. Patient readers will get through it and take in what's good about it, but I think many experienced crime fiction readers will get fed up before reaching the end. Will I give Derek Strange and Terry Quinn a second run? Maybe, it's not like the book pissed me off or anything. It's just going in too many directions at the same time. Plus, the second book of the series is HELL TO PAY, who caught my attention in the first place.