Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Summary and Reviews of Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos

Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos

Hard Revolution

A Novel

by George Pelecanos
  • Critics' Consensus (10):
  • First Published:
  • Mar 1, 2004, 384 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2005, 464 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

'Written in rich, observant prose, this is a brilliant study of a society tearing apart as racial tensions escalate after the King killing.' Publishers Weekly

Derek Strange is a rookie cop, the job he's dreamed of since he was a boy. His brother, Dennis, has not been as fortunate; home from the service with a disability pension and zero prospects, he is man with good intentions but bad habits. Derek has always looked out for Dennis, but no amount of brotherly love can save him from the dangerous world of Alvin Jones, a local bottom-feeder, hustler, and stone killer who draws him into his web of violence.

While the rookie cop navigates the rocky terrain of a city in turmoil, a family in crisis, and his love for a woman he has driven away, Frank Vaughn, a cop at the opposite end of his career, investigates the vicious hit and run of a young black man. Vaughn's personal life is a shambles, but he's good police; he pursues the killers with sharklike intent. Meanwhile, in Memphis, a prophet is murdered, igniting a volcanic chain of events that will leave the nation's capital burned, divided, and decimated, forever changing the lives of its working-class inhabitants.

Chapter One

DEREK STRANGE GOT down in a three-point stance. He breathed evenly, as his father had instructed him to do, and took in the pleasant smell of April. Magnolias, dogwoods, and cherry trees were in bloom around the city. The scent of their flowers, and the heavy fragrance of a nearby lilac bush growing against a residential fence, filled the air.

"You keep your back straight," said Derek, "like you're gonna set a dinner up on it. You ain't want your butt up in the air, either. That way you're ready. You just blow right out, like, and hit the holes. Bust on through."

Derek and his Saturday companion, Billy Georgelakos, were in an alley that ran behind the Three-Star Diner on a single-number block of Kennedy Street, at the eastern edge of Northwest D.C. Both were twelve years old.

"Like your man," said Billy, sitting on a milk crate, an Our Army at War comic book rolled tightly in his meaty hand.

"Yeah," said Derek. "Here go Jim Brown right here." ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS) - JC Patterson
Pelecanos has brought forth a street-tough humanity as tangible as a drive-by shooting and as passionate as a Shakespearian tragedy…. Do yourself a favor, pick up a Pelecanos today.

Esquire Magazine
Two cops struggling to do their jobs against the backdrop of a violent uprising Their paths collide in the middle of a full-fury revolution, in an electrifying climax to the most powerful book yet from George Pelecanos, the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world.

Newsweek - Malcolm Jones
Pelecanos has the first-rate writer's ability to entertain you and break your heart on the same page.

USA Today - Carol Memmott
Pelecanos's writing is as polished and exquisitely honed as the guns that wreak havoc in the neighborhoods where his novels are set.

Washington Post
George Pelecanos writes with intelligence and complexity, as well as with a sober recognition of the evil at large in the world.

Washington Post Book World - Maureen Corrigan
Pelecanos writes with intelligence and complexity, as well as with a sober recognition of the evil at large in the world.

Publishers Weekly
Written in rich, observant prose, the novel is a brilliant study of a society tearing apart as racial tensions escalate after the King killing; no wonder some observers have pointed to Pelecanos as the kind of thriller writer who should be nominated for a National Book Award.

Booklist - Bill Ott
Starred Review. Pelecanos has been justly celebrated for his noir sensibility and his gritty portraits of the streets of Washington, D.C., but he hasn't been recognized for what may be his greatest achievement redefining the art of writing serial fiction

Library Journal - Craig L Shufelt
As with the previous Strange works, this is a superior crime novel from one of the genre's outstanding writers.

Kirkus Reviews
The most conventionally ambitious of Pelecanos's sprawling studies of D.C. crime pat in its sociological determinism, harrowing in its portraits of each hopeless loser and the few ex-losers who escape.

Reader Reviews

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Hard Revolution, try these:


More books by George Pelecanos
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The Frozen River
    by Ariel Lawhon
    "I cannot say why it is so important that I make this daily record. Perhaps because I have been ...
  • Book Jacket
    Prophet Song
    by Paul Lynch
    Paul Lynch's 2023 Booker Prize–winning Prophet Song is a speedboat of a novel that hurtles...
  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Story Collector
by Evie Woods
From the international bestselling author of The Lost Bookshop!
Book Jacket
The Rose Arbor
by Rhys Bowen
An investigation into a girl's disappearance uncovers a mystery dating back to World War II in a haunting novel of suspense.
Who Said...

Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now