The Blue Flame

PRAISE FOR GEORGE PELECANOS

“A modern storytelling master.”—NPR.org

“Like his hero Elmore Leonard, Pelecanos finds the humanity in the lowest of lowlifes…Pelecanos’s peppery dialogue energizes every page.”—Lloyd Sachs, Chicago Tribune

“If I were in jail, George Pelecanos would be on my reading list, right up there with James Lee Burke and Elmore Leonard…Pelecanos’s characters are so human and so doomed. This is an author who writes with the steady hand of a man who knows he’s driving a cool set of wheels and respects his own mechanical skills.”—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“Every time I read one of George Pelecanos’s novels, I’m left a little awed…The guy’s a national treasure.”—Dennis Lehane

“Using his customary knowing dialogue and stripped-down, soulful prose, Pelecanos skillfully, sensitively works the urban frontier where the problems and stresses of everyday life cross the line into the sort of criminal behavior that could tempt anyone—anyone at all.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Here we see what makes Pelecanos’s best writing so resonant: the sense of longing, of miscommunication, the way love does not enlarge us but rather makes us small.”—David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times

“The writing is taut, the violence is graphic, and the characters are so well-drawn that they step off the page and into your life…As good as it gets.”—Bruce DeSilva, Associated Press

“Crackles with energy.”—Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

“The characters—good-hearted, ill-intentioned, or in between—are shown by Mr. Pelecanos with loving clarity, free of cliché, condescension, or illusion…Delivers the thrills of an action movie and the poignancy of fine storytelling.”—Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal