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What It Was

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What It Was

By: George Pelecanos
Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
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About this listen

 Washington, D.C., 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. His former partner, Frank "Hound Dog" Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn's turf, where a local drug addict's been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment. Soon both men are on the trail of a ruthless killer: Red Fury, so called for his looks and the car his girlfriend drives, but a name that fits his personality all too well. Red Fury doesn't have a retirement plan, as Vaughn points out - he doesn't care who he has to cross, or kill, to get what he wants. As the violence escalates and the stakes get higher, Strange and Vaughn know the only way to catch their man is to do it their own way.

Rich with details of place and time - the cars, the music, the clothes - and fueled by non-stop action, this is Pelecanos writing in the hard-boiled noir style that won him his earliest fans and placed him firmly in the ranks of the top crime writers in America. Crime Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Modern Detectives Mystery Police Procedurals Rage
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Pelecanos treats all his characters and his readers with respect. If you go on a journey with this book you will feel you understand the people he writes about and the choices they make. And with Pelecanos. ' Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner.'

Excellent and evocative thriller

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If this book wasn’t for you, who do you think might enjoy it more?

Cannot really answer this. I am a huge Pelecanos fan, but this seemed like a short story padded out into a rather weak novel

What will your next listen be?

Going to give fiction a miss for the time being .... now into sports books

Would you listen to another book narrated by J. D. Jackson?

Probably .... wasn't the best, but by no means the worst narrator

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from What It Was?

About 50-60% of the book was superfluous to the story

Would Have Made A Better Short Story

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