The Way Home

Nobody can teach George Pelecanos anything he doesn't already know about the inherent drama in the father-son dynamic.

A well-written and touching story...The latest novel from this master crime writer revisits familiar territory: family bonds, moral choices, and a young man's struggle to find his place in the world.

George Pelecanos is the sharpest crime writer working today-and a lot like Richard Price, except prolific.

The Way Home remains true to its titular purpose; as a result, the structure is perhaps less weighted toward a classic narrative arc and more toward the journey itself. As with his last two novels, Pelecanos demonstrates that redemption, if it comes at all, is hard-won.

The Way Home is an action-packed, suspenseful mystery story that explores family loyalty and friendship. Pelecanos, as usual, writes crackling prose that propels the reader forward, turning the pages deep into the dark night.

Pelecanos orchestrates the novel's climax for maximum impact, laying bare emotional truths about friendship, loyalty, and betrayal, as well as the mysterious bond between father and son. The Way Home finds him still blazing his unique path through the territory of the crime novel.

Between the wonderful dialogue, the characters who unpeel like onions before your eyes, and action that punches from the shoulder and hip-the very technique Thomas Flynn taught young Chris-Mr. Pelecanos brings things off with bravura.

A crime novel, yes, but the talented Pelecanos shoes it out of its comfort zone....Redemption the hard way, well

Christopher Flynn is trying to get it right. After years of trouble and rebellion that enraged his father and nearly cost him his life, he has a steady job in his father's company, he's seriously dating a woman he respects, and, aside from the distrust that lingers in his father's eyes, his mistakes are firmly in the past. One day on the job, Chris and his partner come across a temptation almost too big to resist. Chris does the right thing, but old habits and instincts rise to the surface, threatening this new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With his father and his most trusted friends, he takes one last chance to blast past the demons trying to pull him back.

Like Richard Price or William Kennedy, Pelecanos pushes his characters to the extremes, their redemption that much sweeter because it is so hard fought. Pelecanos has long been celebrated for his unerring ability to portray the conflicts men feel as they search and struggle for power and love in a world that is often harsh and unforgiving but can ultimately be filled with beauty.