WILL SHOCK..NO ONE WHO LIVES IN THIS CITY AND READS FICTION AND CARES ABOUT THE WORLD WE LIVE IN .CAN AFFORD NOT TO READ THESE BOOKS. They are reports from the front lines that are only a few miles away, unblinking looks at a reality that is all around us...Pelecanos writes with intelligenco and complexity, as well as with sober recognilion of the evil at large in the world.

It was a time when cars came dressed in chrome,white girls followed the Supremes, and a man in Memphis brandished a gun. On the streets of D.C.,where once people of all creeds and colors managed to live together, a tide of anger and confusion is taking young men in its wake. In his early twenties,Derek Strange is one of those men, trying to start a career as a rookie cop. But his own brother is on the other side of a divide, and around him a deadly drama is unfolding. Three white men in a Chevy Nova are going to rob a bank. A black man with a knife is going to commit a murder. And then shots ring out in Memphis... For Derek Strange, for his family, friends, and enemies, this is the time that will make him the man he is eventually going to be. And this is the revolution that has just begun...