Soul Circus Author:George Pelecanos There is no such thing as absolute darkness in the ghettos of Washington DC, just a myriad shades of grey. Thus Derek Strange finds himself trying to prevent a man he dispises from paying the ultimate penalty for his crimes. Granville Oliver - drug lord and murder one suspect - faces the death penalty. But Strange doesn't believe in Old Testamen... more »t "justice", or a death for a death - even for a man such as Oliver. And he finds it tougher to distinguish between the slaying of a gangbanger with an illegal "straw" gun and the state-sanctioned execution of his killer.
But, unbeknownst to Strange, he and his partner, Terry Quinn, become the agents of another death. A client brutally murders a young girl whom they had been paid to find. They took the money and now they have to take the consequences...
Meanwhile, with Oliver off the streets, a new gang war is brewing fast. And that's the bitterest irony of all. However much the establishment would like to execute young gangbangers, they will never be as good at is as the angry young men themselves.« less