New Arrival

類別：小說 / 推理 / 犯罪 (agent : Mingming)

THE NIGHT GARDENER
黑夜園藝師

Summary

歲暮時分 , 美國各出版報業媒體已紛紛展開年度回顧 , 本書已榮獲出版者周刊年度最佳讀物 Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of the Year". 時代雜誌 Time 譽本書為 2006 年度五大 推理小說大師之作 . 不僅登上紐約時報暢銷書榜 ; 波士頓環球報 , 紐約時報 , 華盛頓郵報 , 華爾街日報等各大媒體更是佳評如潮 , 讚其為橫跨推理及文學小說之作 .

作者 George PELECANOS 與 Robert Parker, Michael Connelly 等人同列當代推理小說大師 . 其作品向為美國推理小說文類重要指標 Edgar Awards 獎決選書目 . 亦是義大利 Raymond Chandler award, 日本 Falcon award, 和法國 Grand Prix Du Roman Noir 得主 . 其寫作才華深受 Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks 賞識 , 邀其為 HBO 影集 The Pacific 撰寫故事 .

George PELECANOS 撰寫的 14 部小說皆以華盛頓特區為背景 , 本書透過一宗連續殺人事件反應警察在工作和生活上遇到的困難 . 已有三名受害者了 , 這次是一位年輕黑人女性 , 三名警察負責偵察工作 , 兩名為剛從學校畢業的菜鳥 . 他們為犯人取了個 ”Night Gardener” 的代號 , 因為犯人總是在華盛頓各公園進行槍殺 , 棄屍花圃 .

謀殺案在第三具屍體被發現後就似乎停止了 , 但始終無法尋得真兇 . 20 年後 , 當時偵辦此案的警察 , 只剩一人仍在崗位 . 此時一件新的謀殺案 , 一具留在花圃旁的中學生屍體 , 勾起了警察的記憶 , 招回過去的伙伴 , 一同尋找真相 .

作者 About the Author
George Pelecanos was born in Washington , D.C. in 1957. He worked as a line cook, dishwasher, bartender, and woman's shoe salesman before publishing his first novel in 1992.

Pelecanos is the author of fourteen crime novels set in and around Washington, D.C.: A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip, Shoedog, Down By the River Where the Dead Men Go, The Big Blowdown, King Suckerman, The Sweet Forever, Shame the Devil, Right as Rain, Hell to Pay, Soul Circus, Hard Revolution, Drama City, and The Night Gardener. See the Bookshelf for more information on these titles) He has been the recipient of the Raymond Chandler award in Italy , the Falcon award in Japan , and the Grand Prix Du Roman Noir in France . Hell to Pay and Soul Circus were awarded the 2003 and 2004 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire and the collections Unusual Suspects, Best American Mystery Stories of 1997, Measures of Poison, Best American Mystery Stories of 2002, Men From Boys, Murder at the Foul Line, and D.C. Noir, for which he also served as editor. He is an award-winning essayist who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Sight and Sound, Uncut, Mojo, and numerous other publications. Esquire magazine called Pelecanos "the poet laureate of the D.C. crime world."

Pelecanos served as producer on the feature films Caught (Robert M. Young, 1996), Whatever (Susan Skoog, 1998) and BlackMale (George and Mike Baluzy, 1999), and was the U.S. distributor of John Woo's cult classic, The Killer and Richard Bugajski's Interrogation. Most recently, he was a producer, writer, and story editor for the acclaimed HBO dramatic series, The Wire, winner of the Peabody Award and the AFI Award. He was nominated for an Emmy for his writing on that show. His novel Right as Rain is currently in development with director Curtis Hanson (LA Confidential, Wonder Boys) and Warner Brothers. He is a writer on the upcoming World War II miniseries The Pacific, to be produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and HBO.

Pelecanos lives in Silver Spring , Maryland , with his wife and three children. He is at work on his next novel.

國外書評

Congratulations to George Pelecanos and THE NIGHT GARDENER, which is included in Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of the Year" coverage! Read on for more great praise. Best, Erin

Time includes THE NIGHT GARDENER by George Pelecanos in their roundup entitled "5 Novel Mysteries From Old Masters." "Pelecanos has mellowed in the 14th novel--he's less gratuitously violent, more attuned to emotional subtext--but his prose has lost none of its street cred or bite."

The Los Angeles Times featured a prominent business section piece about both Michael Connelly 's ten-minute YouTube video preview of ECHO PARK and Little, Brown's “movie-slick” trailer for the book. The story was placed on the United Press International wire and also ran in the Detroit News , Washington Times, numerous blogs, and Canadian newspapers.

George Pelecanos, author of THE NIGHT GARDENER, is the subject of a large New York Times feature! The front of Arts piece, entitled "Crime, Complex Characters and Dreams of a Bestseller," enthuses that Pelecanos "wield[s] taut dialogue and nuanced characterizations of detectives, barflies, and drug dealers and various other criminals. He also writes sharply about race and the conscious and unconscious way people judge on another because of it, while interspersing his books with an aficionado's passion for soul music and westerns."

Janet Maslin gives George Pelecanos's THE NIGHT GARDENER a rave review in The New York Times! "THE NIGHT GARDENER is another of Mr. Pelecanos's beautifully delineated moral tales, filled with gut-wrenching turns of fate and razor-sharp, boisterously vivid characters."

THE NIGHT GARDENER is the cover of Sunday's Los Angeles Times Book Review! "George Pelecanos does not write for those seeking a stock crime novel, who like their books conventional, their plots pat and their endings neatly tied up....Pelecanos writes a different kind of books: gritty, disturbing and unpredictable....A powerful and compelling book."

The San Francisco Chronicle joins in praising Pelecanos and THE NIGHT GARDENER. "George Pelecanos demands patience of readers, but in a good way. With his latest novel, THE NIGHT GARDENER, Pelecanos once again spools out his tale slowly and methodically, allowing us to savor the many nuances and grace notes he's so adept at creating."

The Cleveland Plain Dealer raves of THE NIGHT GARDENER: "George Pelecanos has been a gifted writer for a long time, but with THE NIGHT GARDENER he reaches that sweet spot where talent, experience and sheer storytelling combine to produce the best book of his career. This novel should be the breakthrough for Pelecanos that Mystic River was for Dennis Lehane."

The Denver Post gives THE NIGHT GARDENER a wonderful review! "What sets Pelecanos above many of his peers is not that he's good at revealing what happens, which he is, but he's exceptional at revealing why....In the end, THE NIGHT GARDENER is powerful not because it is a good story well-delivered, though it is both of these. It is powerful because it uses all the power of fiction to answer questions that nonfiction never will be able to fully address."

The Miami Herald calls THE NIGHT GARDENER Pelecanos' "mesmerizing 14th novel, an exquisitely detailed exploration of the powerful ties of family, race and police work....As a solemn police procedural and an involving character study, especially of white cop Gus Ramone whose biracial teenage son is struggling with bigotry at school, THE NIGHT GARDENER is crime fiction at its best."

An AP review of THE NIGHT GARDENER hit the wires today! "THE NIGHT GARDENER can be read as a police procedural hipper but just as good as those of the late, great Ed McBain. But it is also a wise, textured examination of life in urban America , as sophisticated as the best work of Richard Price....[Pelecanos'] last book, Drama City , is a masterpiece of American crime fiction; THE NIGHT GARDENER is even better."

THE NIGHT GARDENER receives an "A-" Entertainment Weekly! "Like Pelecanos' work on HBO's The Wire, GARDENER brims with meticulous, humane, sprawling authenticity--and takes its sweet time getting anywhere."

September's Atlantic Monthly includes George Pelecanos's THE NIGHT GARDENER in a crime roundup. "Pelecanos manages to avoid the cheap conventions of the buddy formula, and to evoke Chandler himself, without being at all retro or self-conscious about it. A host of supporting characters—family members, barflies, prostitutes, precinct mates, thugs big-time and small—help flesh out this deeply human tale, which doesn't shy from the unexpected discoveries and laudably unsatisfying resolutions of all great noir."

The Washington Post ran a wonderful review for George Pelecanos's THE NIGHT GARDENER on the cover of yesterday's Book World! "Although THE NIGHT GARDENER has its share of pageturning virtues, Pelecanos once again shows himself to have ambitions far beyond simply creating a first-rate thriller. Like Dennis Lehane at his best, Pelecanos is able to obscure the line between genre writing and 'serious' fiction."

The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Trachtenberg interviews George Pelecanos for a wonderful online piece. Trachtenberg opens the interview with: "Few novelists have chronicled urban crime as convincingly as George Pelecanos."

The Rocky Mountain News gives George Pelecanos's THE NIGHT GARDENER an "A" review. “I urge you to read THE NIGHT GARDENER and see for yourself what sets it so far apart....More than a police procedural, like thousands of others, this is high art."

THE NIGHT GARDENER by George Pelecanos is #1 on “the shelf” in the August issue of Details Magazine. The reviewer praises Pelecanos for his characters: “gutter-mouthed cops and miscreants”.

Marilyn Stasio loves THE NIGHT GARDENER in Sunday's New York Times Book Review! " George Pelecanos takes the urban crime novel as far as it can go in THE NIGHT GARDENER , although, come to think of it, haven't I felt the same way about all his books?....Pelecanos does some astonishing character work on these cops, so sensitive and true that it even stands up to his vivid studies of the low-life criminals who live hard and die young in this violent world."

Salon.com gives Pelecanos's THE NIGHT GARDENER their second rave in as many months! For the DC stop on their "Literary Guide to the World," Salon raves “Although he too is overlooked and underrated, crime writer George Pelecanos has the advantage of being fun to read.” http://www.salon.com/books/literary_guide/2006/08/14/washington_dc/index_np.html

THE NIGHT GARDENER is also reviewed in the Seattle Times : "Pelecanos still creates sharp dialogue that lights up details — especially when it comes to cars, sports and pop music — and the three leads are complex and powerful characters."

The Chicago Sun-Times runs a rave review of THE NIGHT GARDENER in today's paper! "Will readers ever wake up and recognize the brilliance that George Pelecanos ' writing demonstrates, year after year and book after book? One can only hope, because he's just too great of a writer to remain largely unknown."