{"id":268,"date":"2015-02-03T23:43:05","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T04:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturated.com\/?p=268"},"modified":"2015-02-08T21:04:44","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T02:04:44","slug":"the-martini-shot-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/the-martini-shot-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"George Pelecanos- The Martini Shot Book Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crime writer-turned-TV\/movie producer George Pelecanos<\/a>\u00a0has nearly 20 novels and one novella to his name, and has won Edgar and Writers Guild of America Awards for his work on HBO’s The Wire<\/em>. The short story format is a new one for Pelecanos, but his writing is just as effective with the shorter word count restrictions he\u2019s given himself in The Martini Shot<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As\u00a0in his influential “DC Quartet” book series, which earned favorable comparisons to James Ellroy, most of Pelecanos’\u00a0characters here are growing up in the D.C.\/Maryland area, surrounded by crime. And though not necessarily all of them are obvious protagonists, you can\u2019t help but root for them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of the few exceptions is the story of a middle class couple, who adopt three children and raise them alongside their biological child, only to see most of them drift away or get lost in a world of drugs. It is unlike many of the crime-heavy pieces the author is typically associated with, but he ultimately proves that his knack for writing great characters is not strictly limited to one genre.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The eponymous novella, which is probably the most absorbing piece in the book (which is saying a lot considering that there are no weak stories in this collection), focuses on a street-smart producer working on location on a cop TV series in an unnamed Southern city.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The producer takes it upon himself to solve the murder of a local crew member and friend. Given Pelecanos’ second career, as a writer and eventual producer on influential shows such as\u00a0The Wire<\/em><\/a> and Treme<\/em><\/a>, the story is given added reality.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you have yet to read any of his books, The Martini Shot<\/em> is the perfect intro to one of contemporary fiction’s most consistently enjoyable crime writers. –John B. Moore<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hardcover\/304 pages\/Little Brown and Company<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crime writer-turned-TV\/movie producer George Pelecanos\u00a0has nearly 20 novels and one novella to his name, and has won Edgar and Writers Guild of America Awards…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[22,23,24,25],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/75.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5slei-4k","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/culturated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}