Shoedog is George Pelecanos’ third novel, which has recently been republished in the UK as part of the Serpent’s Tail Classics series. Now, I’ve never read a Pelecanos novel before, and have yet to catch up with The Wire, the award laden TV show that Pelecanos wrote for and sometimes produced (BBC2 showed it way too late on consecutive nights), so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. A drifter, Constantine, hitches a lift with old timer Polk back to his home city of Washington DC. Constantine wants to head south, but Polk has to pick up some money along the way. However, the gangster who owes Polk the money, Grimes, ain’t too keen on paying. As with everything in his life thus far, Constantine drifts into the hold up of two liquor stores along with Polk, after which Grimes promises to pay him his dues. In DC for longer than he thought, Constantine catches up with an old girlfriend (now married with kids), and also makes out with Grimes’ girlfriend, Delia, which probably doesn’t bode too well for his relationship with this mean crime boss… The narration momentarily pauses from focusing on Constantine and Polk to switch to Valdez, Grimes’ henchman, which immediately gives the impression that Pelecanos may have wanted to give a cinematic feel to Shoedog. Certainly, some of the scenes, such as the shooting up of a police car, and the dialogue between the armed robbers, could have come direct from Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 debut Reservoir Dogs, and Pelecanos certainly seems to have been influenced by this earlier movie in his choice of title. While there is an element of mystery to be solved, it isn’t the focus of Pelcanos’ novel. No, Shoedog is more a portrait of a gritty criminal world, rather than a cerebral puzzle. Pelecanos’ new afterword on the writing of Shoedog states that this novel reflects many of his passions, such as shoes and pumped up cars, none of which I share. Indeed, Shoedog was probably a bit too pumped up with testosterone for me, and I didn’t really care for or about Constantine that much. Having written that, if I had experienced Shoedog as a movie, then I probably would have lapped it up.