Length: 295 pages
Genre: Crime, thriller
This entertaining book collects seven short stories and one novella. George Pelecanos is a crime writer who specialises in tough, urban thrillers set in and around Washington DC, and subsequently found great success as a screenwriter, writing episodes of The Wire (2002-2008) and Treme (2010-2013) among others, and was the co-creator of The Deuce (2017-2019) with regular collaborator David Simon.
The stories in this book are very much in the typical Pelecanos style: a police informant grapples with family problems and his own conscience; a family with several adopted children find the lives of their kids taking unexpected and sometimes dark paths; a young boy finds his skill at basketball makes him some bitter enemies; a seasoned private investigator finds more than he bargained for while investigating a case in Brazil; a young drug dealer tries to get out of the life but finds it's easier said than done; three college friends find their lives going in very different directions when a drug deal goes wrong; in 1930s New York a busboy seeks vengeance for the murder of his friend; and a TV crime writer finds himself embroiled in a real-life crime drama. Incidentally, the book's title is film industry slang for the last shot of the day, referring to the fact that the next shot is liquor.
The stories are fast moving, tense and sometimes surprisingly funny, they showcase Pelecanos' ear for dialogue and eye for detail. However, many of them do cover very similar ground, and plot is not Pelecanos' strong point. His books are usually more like character pieces with the plots almost playing out in the background.
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