The Cut - Tapa dura

As you'd expect from a writer with credit for both The Wire and Treme, Pelecanos expertly renders the streets of the US capital and succeeds where many have failed of late: creating a fully formed antihero whom readers will want to meet again. (SHORTLIST)

Pelecanos is incapable of writing a book that isn't gripping, and the dialogue is of a brilliance comparable only with Elmore Leonard and George V Higgins. (THE TIMES)

a bloody, brooding thriller of rare authenticity. (Mark Sanderson EVENING STANDARD)

expertly crafted writing, pop-culture references ... and a plot that keeps twisting to the dramatic finale. (SHORTLIST)

This is gold-standard character-driven crime writing that few will ever match. I can't wait for the sequel. (Christopher Fowler FINANCIAL TIMES)

Pelecanos keeps readers on their toes with with a series of twists that confound stereotypes, drilling the plot along with breakneck prose, sassy dialogue and even shifting into a serious analysis at modern society in all its flawed glory. Exceptional. (THE BIG ISSUE)

The language, like the action, is brutal, fast and hard ... Stephen King describes Pelecanos as 'perhaps the greatest living crime writer' and The Cut certainly marks him out as a name to watch. In fact, he may just come to give Ellroy and Leonard a run for their money in the hard-boiled stakes. (DAILY MAIL)

Pelecanos, heir to Elmore Leonard's throne, has landed another short, sparkling masterpiece. What's more, The Cut is just the beginning of a planned series for tough, streetwise, mother's boy Spero Lucas. (THE MIRROR)

George Pelecanos writes hard-boiled fiction with heart (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

He's best known for writing acclaimed US TV show The Wire. But George Pelecanos has spent many years penning brilliant but under-appreciated crime novels set in Washington DC ... the dialogue, characters and sense of location are superb. Pelecanos is a Cut above the rest. (Natasha Harding THE SUN)