The Double (Spero Lucas Series #2)

by George Pelecanos

Overview

Every man has his dark side . . . Spero Lucas confronts his own in the most explosive thriller yet from one of America's best-loved crime writers.

The job seems simple enough: retrieve the valuable painting -- "The Double" -- Grace Kinkaid's ex-boyfriend stole from her. It's the sort of thing Spero Lucas specializes in: finding what's missing, and doing it quietly. But Grace wants more. She wants Lucas to find the man who humiliated her -- a violent career criminal with a small gang of brutal thugs at his beck and call.

Lucas is a man who knows how to get what he wants, whether it's a thief on the run -- or a married woman. In the midst of a steamy, passionate love affair that he knows can't last, in pursuit of a dangerous man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, Lucas is forced to decide what kind of man he is -- and how far he'll go to get what he wants.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316255912
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	10/08/2013
Series:	Spero Lucas Series , #2
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	87,386
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

George Pelecanos is the bestselling author of twenty novels set in and around Washington, D.C. He is also an independent film producer, and a producer and Emmy-nominated writer on the HBO series The Wire, Treme, and The Deuce. He lives in Maryland.

Hometown:

Silver Spring, Maryland

Date of Birth:

February 18, 1957

Place of Birth:

Washington, D.C.

Education:

B.A., University of Maryland at College Park, 1980

Website:

http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/features/georgepelecanos/

Editorial Reviews

An Iraq War veteran, Spero Lucas takes work from a D.C. defense attorney who needs help securing reasonable doubt for his client; at the same time Spero freelances by retrieving stolen property, in this case an expensive painting, for a standard 40 percent recovery fee. As he hunts for the thieves, Spero also finds time for a torrid affair with a married woman. But longtime readers know the details of a Pelecanos thriller are never the primary focus; it's the music his characters listen to, the clothes they wear, and where they stack up on the manhood spectrum that matter more, beginning with his main character: Pelacanos's title is the name of the missing painting, but it also refers to Spero himself, a man portrayed as thoughtful and humane but who will work for criminals and has killed (in combat and out) without compunction. VERDICT In his second book (after The Cut) featuring private investigator Spero Lucas, Pelecanos juggles multiple narratives without sacrificing the austere narrative style he's perfected. Though the author doesn't break new ground thematically, this sequel brings his ambiguous hero into sharper focus, making him a character readers will want to know better.—Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ

Library Journal

It's astonishing all the good stuff Pelecanos can pack into one unpretentious book: meaty substance, multiple story lines, vital characters, choice dialogue and all those descriptive details…that make the story so rich.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

08/26/2013
Reviewed by Patrick Millikin Pelecanos’s novels have always kept one eye toward the recent past—a constant touchstone being the 1970s. The decade’s popular culture, its fashion, film, music, and automobiles inform novels such as Hard Revolution, King Suckerman, and What It Was, which are set during one of the most tumultuous periods in the nation’s history. In a way, all the novels that Pelecanos has written have been influenced by the Vietnam War. Now Pelecanos, a producer of The Wire and Treme who’s also written for both HBO shows, has given us a new series that brings us right up to the present. With Spero Lucas, introduced in 2011’s The Cut, Pelecanos has created one of his finest, and most complex, protagonists. An Iraq War combat veteran, Lucas has seen more than his share of death, but, unlike many of his returning peers, he has found work that allows him to tap into the heightened levels of adrenaline that were awakened overseas. His primary gig is as investigator for D.C. defense attorney Tom Petersen, who gives him a difficult case at the outset of this sequel to The Cut. A client, Calvin Bates, faces the death penalty for the first-degree murder of his mistress, Edwina Christian, whose body has been discovered in a nearby wooded area. Inconsistencies in the case, including physical evidence at the crime scene, have Lucas convinced that the story might not be as cut-and-dried as it appears. In the meantime, Lucas has found himself another side job, the retrieval of a stolen painting called The Double from a young divorcée’s condo. His usual terms apply: 40% of the stolen item’s value, in cash, no questions asked. The trail leads Lucas to a trio of thugs working together on various criminal enterprises: a Russian Internet scammer, a sociopathic lothario preying upon vulnerable women, and a young ex-con and former tweaker. As Lucas follows the various strands of his investigation, he finds himself enjoying the hunt, the prospect of violence that will result as he lures his quarry into the open, and the inevitable confrontation. Indeed, the painting itself becomes an apt metaphor for Lucas’s life: the “civilized,” outward identity and the darker shadow self, containing a primal warrior side that, as Pelecanos writes, he doesn’t fully understand. While several of his most trusted friends, fellow Marines, have been able to leave the violence in them behind, Lucas has been unable to do so. Further complicating matters is a gorgeous, unavailable married woman, with whom Lucas has fallen into a passionate affair. At the background of the novel is Lucas’s own family, his mixed-race siblings, his Greek-American parents. Pelecanos puts the race issue out there, but doesn’t focus on it; the Lucases are simply a family, and a loving one. With respect for D.C.’s past on one side, and a vibrant, youthful new protagonist looking squarely into the future, this is the start of a remarkable series. Longtime Pelecanos diehards will be more than satisfied, and new readers will find themselves jonesing for more. Agent: Sloan Harris, ICM. (Oct.) Patrick Millikin is the editor of the Akashic anthology Phoenix Noir.

Publishers Weekly

"It's astonishing all the good stuff Pelecanos can pack into one unpretentious book: meaty substance, multiple story lines, vital characters, choice dialogue and all those descriptive details ... that make the story so rich."—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

"Pelecanos' work has antecedents in the books and films of Richard Stark (Donald Westlake), John D. MacDonald, Elmore Leonard and Don Siegel but also a spooky magic all his own — thanks to the utter believability he maintains."—Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

"A lean, swift, atmospheric detective novel...The characters-good-hearted, ill-intentioned or in between-are shown by Mr. Pelecanos with loving clarity, free of cliché, condescension or illusion. Spero Lucas is an engagingly layered character...The Cut is a resourceful and notably original work the delivers the thrills of an action movie and the poignancy of fine storytelling."

Tom Nolan - Wall Street Journal

"Every time I read one of George Pelecanos's novels -- and The Cut might be the best yet -- I'm left a little awed...The guy's a national treasure."

Dennis Lehane

"Pelecanos at his best...The Cut crackles with energy."

Dan DeLuca - Philadelphia Inquirer

PRAISE FOR THE CUT:

"The writing is spare; the dialogue rings with authenticity; and walking D.C.'s mean streets with Lucas is the next best thing to being there. Easily the best crime novel I've read this year."

Hallie Ephron - Boston Globe

"It's astonishing all the good stuff Pelecanos can pack into one unpretentious book: meaty substance, multiple story lines, vital characters, choice dialogue and all those descriptive details ... that make the story so rich."

Marilyn Stasio - New York Times

Prolific George Pelecanos's latest novel is a welcome return to the adventures of ex-Marine Spero Lucas, a man who is trying to keep the monster inside him in check. Pelecanos says that if he had his way, Dion Graham would perform all his books. It's easy to see why. Graham's delivery is exciting and breathy, a style that matches the book's nonstop action. While his occasional overemphasis on unimportant words can be a bit distracting, overall Graham brings Lucas to life as a troubled man who earns a living finding missing items and people, while suppressing his urge for violence. The title has a double meaning, referring to the stolen painting Lucas is hired to find and also to the man who stole it—a heartless killer who could be Lucas's twin. M.S. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2013 - AudioFile

The second in a series featuring a new investigator represents an update for the veteran mystery novelist. Pelecanos (The Cut, 2011 etc.) has long rotated protagonists rather than settling on a signature hero. His latest is Spero Lucas, who differs from his predecessors in terms of generation, experience and bloodline. And perhaps code of morality as well. A young veteran from the Iraq War, he has become a defense attorney's special investigator at least partly for "a replication of what he'd experienced there every day: a sense of purpose and heightened sensation." He's also a digital native who knows that "the secret most investigators keep is that the bulk of their modern day work is done via computer programs." He comes by his Greek name via adoption, as part of a loving, mixed-race (but dysfunctional) family, and he tends to associate the music that Pelecanos and his previous protagonists favor with his late father. What remains constant throughout the work of the novelist is the deep knowledge of local Washington, D.C. (where this and most of his novels are set), popular culture (from music to sports to literature and beyond) and the human heart. Here, the murder Lucas begins to investigate soon seems like an afterthought, and the romance with which he becomes obsessed seems more like fantasy (though revelatory of his character) than reality. The title (fittingly enough) has a double meaning, referring both to a stolen painting Lucas tries to recover and the adversary he finds himself facing (one of them insists that the two of them are very much alike). He seems to scoff at the very notion of "literary fiction, whatever that was," while praising "a good story told with clean, efficient writing, a plot involving a problem to be solved or surmounted, and everyday characters the reader could relate to." A few more loose ends than usual, but this is a novel Spero Lucas would appreciate. Cult favorite Pelecanos deserves an even wider readership.

Kirkus Reviews