The Night Gardner

George Pelecanos
Little Brown and Company (2006)
ISBN 0316156507
Reviewed by Richard R. Blake for Reader Views (8/06)

Police officer, Gus Ramone, a member of Washington D. C.’s homicide Violent Crime’s division has been assigned to be a part of the investigative team on a case involving the death of a black teenage boy, whose body was found in a local community garden.

The case brought back powerful memories of a series of cases Ramone had worked on twenty years earlier with his partner Dan Holiday, and Detective T. C. Cook.  The earlier murders of three black teenagers had never been solved. The new case brings the three men together on a mission to close this troubling, unsolved case. 

The book details police procedure and the inter-action of detectives as they work through their investigations. The introduction of sub plots adds to the authentic feel of police work in a large metropolitan area, where multiple murders being investigated simultaneously.  These sub plots begin to weave their way throughout the story, each becoming a part of the completed puzzle. 

Pelecanos has a distinctive gift for character development. His characters become genuine, real, flesh and blood personalities.  Rhonda, a single mom, expresses her plight of balancing career, family, and relationship needs to advantage in the interrogation room. Doc Holiday exemplifies the person who has lost his purpose.  Ramone struggles to protect the safety and stability of his family. 

The author’s intuitive descriptive observations of urban realism, emotions, and language are skillfully used to draw the reader into the story. The dialog is thought provoking and exposes unresolved societal issues, prejudices, and inequities.

I felt a sense of interacting with the characters, of becoming street smart, with a sense of living on the edge.  Pelecanos has the ability to express the gritty reality of murder and the aftermath.  He also demonstrates sensitivity to human emotions, the uncertainties of life, and the finality of death.

Well paced tension and suspense build as the final chapters carry the plot to an unexpected, dramatic conclusion.  “The Night Gardener” is destined to become a best seller. 

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