Dose of Humanity Adds to Drama of a Gritty Street Tale

“A lot of mystery writers feel they’re doing a service by putting the world back into place at the end of their novels,” George Pelecanos told a crowd at a book event last year. “I don’t want to do that .... The world is forever put out of place by murder. Violence ripples out. The ripples get smaller in time, but they’re still there. I want to entertain. I want the thriller part to work, but I also want to leave you disturbed at the end.”

His new novel, “Devil to Pay” (Little Brown, $24.95, 288 pages), set in Washington, D.C., accomplishes that, but the feeling of unease has less to do with the final state of its heroes than with the fate of its villains. The latter would be Garfield “D” (for Death) Potter, Carlton “Dirty” Little and Charles White, three young savages who, high on the potent pot hydro, gun down a man whom they feel disrespected them and, by mistake, kill his 9-year-old nephew as well.

Unfortunately for them, the boy had been a quarterback for the Petworth Panthers, a peewee team coached by private detectives Derek Strange and Terry Quinn. The thoughtful, middle-aged Strange and the younger, more volatile Quinn met as antagonists and wound up as edgy partners in crime fighting in the author’s last book, “Right as Rain.” They’re tough hombres you wouldn’t want to cross, whether you’re the trio of sociopaths or a vicious, oversized pimp named Worldwide Wilson specializing in teenage runaways.

Pelecanos rightly has been praised for the realism of his gritty D.C. milieu, the depth of character he achieves with dead-on speech cadences and his patented mood-setting pop-music references.

But there are other writers who excel at place and character. Pelecanos’ uniqueness comes from his bravery in ignoring the concept of cool. Unlike many of today’s chroniclers of streetwise behavior, he’s not afraid to put heart and humanity into his mix, and it pays off in reader involvement.

His people are the flawed products of a cruel and unyielding social structure. His heroes are not glib questing knights who rarely miss a hot gourmet meal. They’re uneven-tempered, hard-bitten men suffering from dark moods and an inability to maintain meaningful relationships. The only thing separating them from the bad guys is their basic decency, a trait that is repaid by twin rays of hope at this novel’s end. But don’t expect any sort of cathartic release from their triumph over the felons.

Pelecanos’ prose is distinguished not only by hopelessly human protagonists but also by the humanity he finds in even the basest of his bad men. In just one short reminiscence on his loss of innocence, Potter, the worst of the homicidal young thugs, is transformed from heartless killer to heartbreaking victim as the author brilliantly sets us up for his uneasy finale.

S.J. Rozan Covers Hot-Button Topics

S.J. Rozan is no slouch when it comes to charting the more shadowy areas of the human heart. Her series features upbeat and logical Lydia Chin and moody, experienced Bill Smith, a unique private detective duo made even more unusual by the author’s decision to alternate the first-person narrative with each book.

“Winter and Night” (St. Martin’s Minotaur, $24.95, 338 pages) is a powerfully moving tale told by Smith that not only covers several hot-button topics, from our national obsession with winning at all costs to the horror of high school homicide, but also forces its usually enigmatic narrator to unlock many of his family secrets.

His back story comes calling in the form of a never-before-met 15-year-old nephew, Gary Russell, who shows up in a jail cell in need of help. Before Smith can do much more than arrange his bail, the boy disappears, sending the sleuth to a suburban New Jersey home and an estranged sister whom he hasn’t seen in 25 years.

It’s a nightmare visit. The sister hates him for something that happened in their past. Her tantrum-prone husband blames him for Gary’s disappearance. And the upscale little town, in the midst of a high school football fever so intense its citizens eagerly overlook such matters as vandalism, rape, drug-dealing and murder, has its own unfriendly way of dealing with New York troublemakers.

The mystery element is a strong one, involving not only the apparent homicide of a young woman who courted the gridiron champs with drugs but a crime that took place decades before. And in leading up to an ending involving a troubled, destruction-bound teen, Rozan tiptoes unscathed through the minefield of fiction fueled by current events.

But her main accomplishment remains the deep and complex relationship of her appealing protagonists. Judging by the last few Chin-Smith adventures, Smith’s narratives tend to be darker. Here, the added intensity of facing not only a frightening crime but also the long-subdued and painful family secrets make him more vulnerable to both danger and the romantic feelings he has for his partner. It will be interesting to see where Rozan takes the two of them from here.

‘60s Murder Tale Nostalgic, Not Cozy

Black River Falls, Iowa, may have had a population of only 27,300 in the early 1960s, but as we discover in Ed Gorman’s highly entertaining series featuring struggling young lawyer Sam McClain, it was not wanting for chaos. In the new “Save the Last Dance for Me” (Carroll and Graf, $24, 230 pages), the leaders of two religious flocks--a snake-handling faith healer and a philandering minister--are sent to meet their maker.

Meanwhile, an anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic movement prompted by John Kennedy’s nomination is underway and, to top things off, the other presidential hopeful, Richard Nixon, has decided to spend a day with one of his biggest supporters, the demanding, powerful Judge Esme Ann Whitney, who is Sam’s main client. Not trusting the dim local police chief to solve the crimes, she orders the lawyer to “get this ridiculous snake mess cleared up” before Nixon’s arrival. “ ... We’ll look like hillbillies.... The man is an intellectual, for God’s sake.”

The prolific, multi-award-winning Gorman seems to be having the time of his life spinning these warmly nostalgic but not exactly cozy tales of middle America at the dawn of the age of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. His pleasant, libidinous 5-foot-5, 24-year-old lawyer-detective is a wonderfully fresh, opinionated, parboiled hero. His fellow townspeople, though in the main arrogant or dumb as posts or bigoted or vindictive or homicidal, are strangely good company. His inevitably star-crossed romances (here, the lady goes back to her unfaithful husband) are properly poignant. The answer to whodunit is clever and uncontrived.

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Dick Lochte, the author of the prize-winning novel “Sleeping Dog” and its sequel, “Laughing Dog” (Poisoned Pen Press), reviews mysteries every other Wednesday.