What It Was, George Pelecanos
What It Was, George Pelecanos
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What It Was

Author: George Pelecanos

Narrator: J. D. Jackson

Unabridged: 6 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/23/2012

Synopsis

In this hard-boiled noir, former police officer turned private investigator Derek Strange's search for a lost ring leads him down a twisted path of crime and corruption—and on the chase for a dangerous killer. Washington, DC, 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. His former partner, Frank "Hound Dog" Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn's turf, where a local drug addict's been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment. Soon both men are on the trail of a ruthless killer: Red Fury, so called for his looks and the car his girlfriend drives, but a name that fits his personality all too well. Red Fury doesn't have a retirement plan, as Vaughn points out—he doesn't care who he has to cross, or kill, to get what he wants. As the violence escalates and the stakes get higher, Strange and Vaughn know the only way to catch their man is to do it their own way. Rich with details of place and time—the cars, the music, the clothes—and fueled by non-stop action, this is Pelecanos writing in the hard-boiled noir style that won him his earliest fans and placed him firmly in the ranks of the top crime writers in America

Reviews

Goodreads review by Baba on November 17, 2022

Derek Strange and Terry Quinn book five: Strange relates a tale to Nick Stefanos; about the days just before Watergate broke in 1972. The Washington DC locals look back and remember, not the fall of Nixon, but the rampage of 'Red Fury' and 'Coco' as witnessed and investigated by a young Strange and......more

Goodreads review by Lou on October 27, 2012

"Red Fury he's the Man Try and stop him if you can!" This novel stemmed from George's novel The Night Gardener where a character Red 'Fury' Jones was planted as a fable, he wanted to give a whole story with him in as the bad boy. And what a story it is, well done this is a throwback to the bygone d......more

Goodreads review by James on August 01, 2013

In 2001, in Right as Rain, George Pelecanos introduced Derek Strange, an ex-cop turned private detective in Washington D.C., where virtually all of Pelecanos's books are set. Strange would ultimately appear in three other novels, and this book makes the fifth. On a rainy afternoon in 2011, Strange, w......more

Goodreads review by Kirk on January 26, 2012

This book is a lot like the decade in which it's set: the garish fashions tend to overshadow the substance, the plot feels loose and sprawling, everybody is collapsing into crass, and the specter of Richard Nixon stinks it up like the bad smell from your local paper mill. Even Amazon's strategy of s......more

Goodreads review by Ed on February 02, 2012

I've been an avid George Pelecanos fan going back for over a decade now. For starters, he uses a lot of musical references from the time period when I listened to rock-and-roll, so I can hear the songs. WHAT IT WAS is like that, as well. Secondly, he describes in loving detail the cool rides his cha......more

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