The Night Gardener

The Night Gardener

by George Pelecanos (Author)

Synopsis

They never found the killer. All they knew, back in the winter of 1985, was that someone was taking teenagers, killing them and leaving their abused bodies in public parks. Three victims in all, with no link between them except a oddity of their names. They read the same back-to-front - Otto, Ava and lastly Eve. A lot has happened in the twenty years since. Detectives Gus Ramone and Dan Holiday - two of the leads on the case - have pursued very different paths. Gus has climbed to the heights of Detective Sergeant and built himself a reputation as a very good cop, whilst Dan has been drummed out of the force - his sleaze finally getting too much for his superiors. However, their paths are about to cross again. A boy named Asa - a close friend of Gus's teenage son - has been found in the public park, his skull shattered by gunfire. Now it seems that both men are once again in the path of this disturbed serial killer. THE NIGHT GARDENER is George Pelecanos's stunning new crime thriller - the story of two very different men united by the maliciousness of a deadly attacker.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 384
Publisher: Orion
Published: 10 Aug 2006

ISBN 10: 0752875418
ISBN 13: 9780752875415
Book Overview: George Pelecanos becomes more successful with every book. His sales are increasing nearly as fast as the amount of positive coverage he gets for every new novel. 'Lean, stirring, knife-edged... DRAMA CITY transports the reader directly into its characters' struggles and gives a visceral sense of each little challenge or victory.' New York Times 'Pelecanos displays a ferocious understanding of street reality and an empathy for America's downtrodden' Guardian As ever, the genius is in the characters that George creates, you see their world from their point of view, a world in which there are no simple answers.

Media Reviews
'This is much more than just a serial-killer novel; as ever, Pelecanos tackles race, family, loyalties and drug culture with the utmost delicacy of touch, providing a gently panoramic and compassionate view of the ills as well as the positive elements of American society.' -- Maxim Jakobowski THE GUARDIAN '[Pelecanos'] fiction over the past decade has been fed by anger and an empathy for a majoirty African-American population that has been marginalised by its own city. His 13th novel The Night Gardener ... concerns itself with what it means to be a good parent in a city where baclk children are tempted daily by the quick-fix blandishments of gang activity. ... It's also a quite brilliant crime novel.' -- Paul Connolly METRO '[The Night Gardener] is almost flawless ... the multi-stranded narrative exhilaratingly displays the equal ease with which Pelecanos depicts blacks and whites, kids and adults, cops and outlaws, men and women. ... The Night Gardener has a strong claim to be regarded as his most impressive indivudual work,' -- John Dugdale SUNDAY TIMES 'George Pelecanos is a stunningly good chronicler of the mean streets of Washington DC ... For anyone who has somehow missed out on Pelecanos, he is up there with Elmore Leonard and even Chandler for street dialogue and inner city settings, and there is always a pleasing moral undertow to his work.' -- Carla McKay DAILY MAIL 'Pelecanos rocks! There are no two ways about it. Fresh from The Wire, which is the berst cTV cop show on either side of hte Atlantic, his new novel takes off from the word go, as a serial killer from the 1980s appears to return to the 21st century. ... Things are never quiet in Pelecanos land and we should be grateful. Police prodedural at its very best.' -- Mark Timlin INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'this novel is complex and gripping.' IRELAND ON SUNDAY 'By concentrating onthe relationships between the characters as much as on the detail of the pursuit, Pelecanos turns a mystery into a moving story with no easy conclusion.' -- Susanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'For some years now, George Pelecanos has been among the higher echelons of American Crime writers such as Denis Lehane, James Ellroy and Michael Connelly, but with The Night Gardender I feel he has outpaced the posse. ... a powerful novel that crosses genres, much like ... Mystic River, and it just demands to be read.' -- Vincent Banville IRISH TIMES 'He is building up not just a series of formidable murder mysteries, but a veritable chronicle of of the social ills and issues - especially racial tensions and drugs - that beset the US capital.' -- Marcel Berlins THE TIMES
Author Bio
George Pelecanos lives in Washington D.C. with his wife and children. He also manages Circle Films, an independent production company responsible for such films as the Coen Brothers' Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing and Barton Fink.