Cover image for The martini shot : a novella and stories
The martini shot : a novella and stories
Title:
The martini shot : a novella and stories
ISBN:
9780316284370
Edition:
First edition.
Physical Description:
295 pages ; 22 cm
Contents:
The confidential informant -- Chosen -- String music -- When you're hungry -- Miss Mary's room -- Plastic Paddy -- The dead their eyes implore us -- The martini shot.
Summary:
Whether they're cops or conmen, savage killers or creative types, gangsters or God-fearing citizens, George Pelecanos' characters are always engaged in a fight for their lives. They fight to advance or simply to survive; they fight against odds, against enemies, even against themselves. In this, his first collection of stories, the acclaimed novelist introduces readers to a vivid and eclectic cast of combatants. A seasoned claims investigator tracks a supposedly dead man from Miami to Brazil, only to be thrown off his game by a kid from the local slum. An aging loser takes a last stab at respectability by becoming a police informant. A Greek-American couple adopts an interracial trio of sons and then struggles to keep their family together, giving us a stirring bit of background on one of Pelecanos' most beloved protagonists, Spero Lucas. In the title novella - which takes its name from Hollywood slang for the last shot of the day, the one that comes before the liquor shots begin - we go behind the scenes of a television cop show, where a writer gets caught up in a drama more real than anything he could have conjured for a script.
Holds: