Mondays Keep Coming

My how that time does fly. A new Monday. A new month. Where did the summer go? Ay yi yi.

Yep, it's October and we're rolling along with another new page of Untrue Tales:

Karen Comes Clean page 11

Busy weekend. Parties on Friday and Saturday. Got a number of projects in the works in various stages of completion. Banging away at scripts and layouts and assembling sets as it were. But I managed to squeeze in some book-reading time and polished off another fine read before the weekend drew to a close.

I've been picking up the novels of George Pelecanos off the street from those guys that sell paperbacks for two bucks a pop whenever I stumble across them. This latest is Soul Circus, the third (I think) book in Pelecanos' Derek Strange series.
























I'd previously read Hell to Pay and Hard Revolution which were both damn good (especially Hard Revolution), despite the fact that Pelecanos really gives his novels awful titles. Hard Revolution sounds like it should be starring Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal for chrissakes. Also, I don't generally like crime series that feature the same protagonist book after book. They usually get a little stale after two or three. Luckily, this hasn't been the case with the Derek Strange series. Strange is an ex-cop in Washington D.C. who runs a P.I. agency with his partner, Terry Quinn, another former police officer. Strange is black and Quinn is white and there's a lot of interesting interaction between the two, comparing and contrasting their personalities, working methods and personal lives. These two are a couple of really well-drawn compelling characters. Pelecanos is great with the street lingo too, and really gets in the heads of the menagerie of gangsters, cops and private citizens that are all caught up in the web of drug crime and gun violence that plagues the city.

So I'm reading the book and it's pretty good. It's what I've come to expect from Pelecanos. But I'm thinking, yeah, this is good stuff, but I'm three books in and it is starting to feel a tad repetitious. Strange is cool and reserved and honorable. Likes his soul music and his Payday bars. Quinn is hotheaded and sensitive about being the token white guy. Blah blah blah. Then some crazy shit happens and turns everything on its ear. You know what I like? The twist. The unexpected. Pelecanos delivers the goods. I might have to track down the rest of the Derek Strange books now. Even if I have to pay more than two dollars.

Okay, here's a sketch:


























Have a good one!