George Pelecanos was born and raised in Washington, DC, the setting for most of his fiction, with a Greek immigrant background. The family owned a coffee shop, which Pelecanos ran for a while when his father was ill, and his experience of diner and bar work in his youth informs many of his works, which frequently make use of such locales. Aside from his career as a novelist he has worked in film and television as both a scriptwriter and producer, being active in the latter two roles in the critically acclaimed American TV series
The Wire(2002-8).
There are several detective protagonists in Pelecanos’s work, Nick Stefanos (A Firing Offense (1992), Nick’s Trip (1993), Down By the River Where the Dead Men Go (1995)), the partnership of Derek Strange and Terry Quinn (Right as Rain
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Citation: Sim, Stuart. "George Pelecanos". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 February 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12514, accessed 26 November 2024.]
