The Martini Shot: A Novella and Short Stories
From the writer of the HBO series Treme and The Wire comes a brand new collection of short stories
What really goes on beneath the surface of a city?
There's the slum kid whose basketball skills earn him loyal friends and bitter rivals. The police informant grappling with his own sick conscience. A helpless young drug dealer watches as violence seeps into the lives of those who he cares about. And a writer on a TV cop show who finds drama and reality are colliding much too close to home.
Corruption, revenge, honour, sacrifice and the fight to survive.
Dark, fast-paced and crackling with energy, these stories expose the violence and darkness on the streets of any city. Gritty and hard-hitting, THE MARTINI SHOT is Pelecanos at his very best.
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George Pelecanos
George Pelecanos was born in Washington, D.C., in 1957. He worked as a line cook, dishwasher, bartender, and woman's shoe salesman before publishing his first novel in 1992.
Pelecanos is the author of eighteen novels set in and around Washington, D.C.: A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip, Shoedog, Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go, The Big Blowdown, King Suckerman, The Sweet Forever, Shame the Devil, Right as Rain, Hell to Pay, Soul Circus, Hard Revolution, Drama City, The Night Gardener, The Turnaround, The Way Home, The Cut, and What It Was. He has been the recipient of the Raymond Chandler award in Italy, the Falcon award in Japan, and the Grand Prix du Roman Noir in France. Hell to Pay and Soul Circus were awarded the 2003 and 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire, Playboy, and the collections Unusual Suspects, Best American Mystery Stories of 1997, Measures of Poison, Best American Mystery Stories of 2002, Men from Boys, and Murder at the Foul Line. He served as editor on the collections D.C. Noir and D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, as well as The Best Mystery Stories of 2008. He is an award-winning essayist who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Sight and Sound, Uncut, Mojo, and numerous other publications. Esquire called him "the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world." In Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King wrote that Pelecanos is "perhaps the greatest living American crime writer." Pelecanos would like to note that Mr. King used the qualifier "perhaps."

