This was a pretty decent read. Derek Strange is an older black man in D.C. who runs a private investigator business. Terry Quinn is a former cop, now working in a used bookstore and record shop. Some time before the start of the story, Quinn happened on a black man holding a gun to a white man in the street. Quinn shot him. Turned out the black man, Chris Wilson, was an off-duty police officer. Wilson had a couple of excessive force complaints and a temper, and he didn’t come off looking too sympathetic. Despite being officially exonerated, Quinn either had too much on his mind or was quietly pushed out. Anyway, at the start of the book the Wilson’s mom hires Strange to dig into the case and hopefully clear the Wilson name.
Strange interviews Quinn, and basically decides he likes him. Despite him being partially the subject of his investigation, Strange has Quinn help out in a few spots. Quinn does it because he has a fair amount of guilt over shooting Wilson. They start to dig up incriminating evidence on the man Wilson held a gun to. And that leads to a D.C. drug kingpin and Wilson’s drug-addicted sister.
Pelecanos injects a lot of race relations into this novel. In particular is the question of whether Quinn was trigger-happy with Wilson because Wilson was black. Quinn also dates a black woman. Strange for his part takes pride in being a black man owning a business. He gives his girlfriend’s son advice on sticking to the straight and narrow because black teens won’t get cut any slack if they’re caught. Plus, there’s a lot of temptation for a black boy. But, despite his lecturing, Strange also will take advantage of white fear of black men to get his way in a bar, for instance. The bad guys, for their part, also deal with the race issue. But there the characters are more caricature. The drug kingpin is Colombian. The mules are country cracker white boys who hate blacks and to a lesser extend Hispanics. They aren’t the worst stereotypes, but they aren’t far from it.
I’m pretty impressed with the book. Pelecanos paced it well, without using much in the way of gimmicks. A couple of times he has Strange do something, where he deliberately doesn’t tell the reader what Strange is doing. Most of the time the point of view is third person omniscient, so it was noticeable when the omniscience faded for very brief spots. But other gimmicks like telling things out of order, or unnecessary cliffhangers while we switch to another character’s point of view, these gimmicks were not used. I also liked that Pelecanos told a gripping story without constantly putting Strange and Quinn in constant danger. I was drawn in by the unraveling of the mystery, not by danger. And yet, there’s plenty of danger, and plenty of action. It’s just not used as a plot device.
It’s definitely an above average read.
Title: Right as rain
Author: George P. Pelecanos
Series: Strange/Quinn ; 1
Imprint / publisher: Warner Books
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 359 p.
Publication date: February 2002
ISBN-10: 0-446-61079-8
Subject: Strange, Derek (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Private investigators — Washington (D.C.) — Fiction
Subject: African American detectives — Fiction
Subject: Police corruption — Fiction
Subject: Racism — Fiction
Subject: Washington (D.C.) — Fiction
LC classification: PS3566.E354 R54 2001
