George P. Pelecanos (born February 18, 1957) is an American author, producer, and television writer. Many of his 20 books are in the genre of detective fiction and set primarily in his hometown of Washington, D.C. On television, he frequently collaborates with David Simon, writing multiple episodes of Simon's HBO series The Wire and Treme, and is also the co-creator (with Simon) of the HBO series The Deuce and We Own This City.
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Early life
Pelecanos was born in Washington, D.C., on February 18, 1957. He is a Greek American.
Career
Novelist
Inspired by the works of Elmore Leonard, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, John D. MacDonald, Ross Macdonald, Mickey Spillane, and John le Carré, he began his career as an author of crime fiction.
Pelecanos's early novels were written in the first person voice of Nick Stefanos, a Greek resident of Washington, D.C., and sometime private investigator.
After the success of his first four novels, the Stefanos-narrated A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip, and Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go, and the non-series (though some characters do cross over) Shoedog, Pelecanos switched his narrative style considerably and expanded the scope of his fiction with his D.C. Quartet. He has commented that he did not feel he had the ability to be this ambitious earlier in his career. The quartet, often compared to James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, spanned several decades and communities within the changing population of Washington. Now writing in the third person, Pelecanos relegated Stefanos to a supporting character and introduced his first "salt and pepper" team of crime fighters, Dimitri Karras and Marcus Clay.
In The Big Blowdown, set a generation before Karras and Clay would appear (the 1950s), Pelecanos followed the lives of dozens of D.C. residents, tracking the challenges and changes that the second half of the twentieth century presented to Washingtonians. King Suckerman, set in the 1970s and generally regarded as the fans' favorite, introduced the recurring theme of basketball in Pelecanos' fiction. Typically, he employs the sport as a symbol of cooperation amongst the races, suggesting the dynamism of D.C. as reflective of the good will generated by multi-ethnic pick up games. However, he also indulges the reverse of the equation, wherein the basketball court becomes the site of unresolved hostilities. In such cases, violent criminal behavior typically emerges amongst the participants, usually escalating the mystery. The Sweet Forever (1980s) and Shame the Devil (1990s) closed the quartet and Pelecanos retired Stefanos and the other characters that populated the novels. (Stefanos and other characters do reappear in subsequent works).
In 2001, he introduced a new team of private detectives, Derek Strange and Terry Quinn, as the protagonists of Right as Rain. They have subsequently starred in the author's more recent works Hell to Pay (which won a Gumshoe Award in 2003) and Soul Circus. While these books have cemented the author's reputation as one of the best current American crime writers and sold consistently, they have not garnered the critical and cult affection his D.C. quartet did. Rather, they seem to be continuing the author's well received formula of witty protagonists chasing unconflicted criminals behind the backdrop of popular culture references and D.C. landmarks.
Film and television
Pelecanos has written and produced for HBO's The Wire and is part of a literary circle with The Wire creator David Simon and novelist Laura Lippman. Simon sought out Pelecanos after reading his work. Simon was recommended his novels several times but did not read his work initially because of territorial prejudice; Simon is from Baltimore. Once Simon received further recommendations, including one from Lippman, he tried The Sweet Forever and changed his mind. The two writers have much in common including a childhood in Silver Spring, Maryland, attendance at the University of Maryland, and their interest in the "fate of the American city and the black urban poor". They first met at the funeral of a mutual friend shortly after Simon delivered the pilot episode. Simon pitched Pelecanos the idea of The Wire as a novel for television about the American city as Pelecanos drove him home. Pelecanos was excited about the prospect of writing something more than simple mystery for television as he strived to exceed the boundaries of genre in his novels.
Pelecanos joined the crew as a writer for the first season in 2002. He wrote the teleplay for the season's penultimate episode, "Cleaning Up", from a story by Simon and Ed Burns. Pelecanos was promoted to producer for the second season in 2003. He wrote the teleplay for the episodes "Duck and Cover" and "Bad Dreams" from stories he co-wrote with Simon. He remained a writer and producer for the third season in 2004. He wrote the teleplay for the episodes "Hamsterdam" and "Middle Ground" from stories he co-wrote with Simon. Simon wrote the teleplay for the episode "Slapstick" from a story he co-wrote with Pelecanos. Simon and Pelecanos' collaboration on "Middle Ground" received the show's first Emmy Award nomination, in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. Pelecanos left the production staff of The Wire after the show's third season to concentrate on writing his novel The Night Gardener. His role as a producer was taken on by Eric Overmyer.
Pelecanos remained a writer for the fourth season in 2006. He wrote the teleplay for the penultimate episode "That's Got His Own" from a story he co-wrote with producer Ed Burns. Simon has commented that he missed having Pelecanos working on the show full-time but was a fan of The Night Gardener. Simon also spent time embedded with a homicide unit while researching his own book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets. Pelecanos and the writing staff won the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2008 ceremony and the 2007 Edgar Award for Best Television Feature/Mini-Series Teleplay for their work on the fourth season. Pelecanos returned as a writer for the series fifth and final season. He wrote the teleplay for the episode "Late Editions" from a story he co-wrote with Simon. Pelecanos and the writing staff were again nominated for the WGA award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for their work on the fifth season but Mad Men won the award.
Personal life
As of 2006, Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children.
Published works
Novels
Shoedog (1994). ISBN 0312110618
Drama City (2005). ISBN 0316608211
The Night Gardener (2006). ISBN 978-0316156509
The Turnaround (2008). ISBN 978-0316156479
The Way Home (2009). ISBN 978-0316156493
The Man Who Came Uptown (2018) ISBN 978-0316479820
A Firing Offense (1992). ISBN 0312069707
Nick's Trip (1993). ISBN 0312088620
Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go (1995). ISBN 0312130562
The Big Blowdown (1996). ISBN 0312142846
King Suckerman (1997). ISBN 0316695904
The Sweet Forever (1998). ISBN 0316691097
Shame the Devil (2000). ISBN 0316695238
Right as Rain (2001). ISBN 0316695262
Hell to Pay (2002). ISBN 0316695068
Soul Circus (2003). ISBN 0316608432
Hard Revolution (2004). ISBN 0316608971
What It Was (2012). ISBN 978-0316209533
The Cut (2011). ISBN 978-0316078429
The Double (2013). ISBN 978-0316078399
Short fiction
The Martini Shot (2015). ISBN 978-0316284370
Owning Up (2024). ISBN 978-0316570473
D.C. Noir (2006). ISBN 978-1888451900
D.C. Noir 2: The Classics (2008). ISBN 978-1933354583
Best American Mystery Stories 2008, with Otto Penzler (2008). ISBN 978-0618812677
Essays, reporting and other contributions
Pelecanos, George (June 10–17, 2013). "Twisted". True Crimes. The New Yorker. Vol. 89, no. 17. pp. 54–55.
Filmography
Production staff
Writer