by Richard Price (1992)

If you need a Wire fix, and have already read Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets as I’ve recommended, Richard Price’s Clockers should be next on your list. The novel was a huge inspiration on the television show and Price was even brought in to write for it as the shows creators were such fans. It was adapted by Spike Lee, but I’ve yet to see the resulting movie. I can say that the novel is as well written and realistically engaging as I’ve come to expect from Price and it’s more focused narrative is more satisfying even than his recent hit Lush Life.

Set on the streets of a fictional New Jersey county, Clockers follows Strike, a mid level drug dealer and Rocco, a homicide detective bent on solving a murder that he’s positive Strike is behind. Problem is, even with all signs pointing to his guilt, his hard working brother confessed.

A streetwise young kid named Tyrone, the dangerous drug boss, Rodney, Rocco’s even headed partner, a vain actor trying to get real by hanging out with detectives, and Strike’s struggling, sympathetic brother Victor fill out this character study that is sometimes dark and heavy, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes humorous, and always entertaining.

Price is becoming one of my go to writers when I want a book that’s sure to deliver (along side TC Boyle and Jack Vance).

See more: Books 1990s Crime Mysteries

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Posted on May 23, 2010

directed by Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, Anand Tucker

Film critic David Thomson brazenly proclaimed The Red Riding Trilogy (three films directed by three different filmmakers) to be “a tragic achievement that surpasses that of ‘The Godfather'”. While I can’t quite agree with Thomson’s assertion, I’m thrilled his hyperbole has sparked so much international interest in the three films (now playing at IFC theater on 6th Avenue and On Demand) and the four David Peace novels on which they are based (the first of which I recommended a few weeks back), no matter how flawed the films themselves are.

The trilogy, which chronicles a decade of brutality (though the screen adaptation is not nearly as brutal as the book), anti-hero protagonists, sickening police corruption, torture, murder, and – not one but two – serial killers stalking the north of England, is a grim one. It’s rife with cliches while strangely remaining almost surreally confounding… After watching all three films (and I strongly believe you have to watch all three to absorb the complete feel of the work), I was both intrigued – though always kept at an arm’s length – and somewhat unsatisfied.

I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about the experience which was at times rather demanding (in no small part due to to its splintered narrative, thick northern accents and relentless violence) while at the same time almost laughably trite in its chronic overuse of rote serial-killer-drama conventions. I say ‘almost’ because in the piss soaked, knuckle-beaten, nuclear power plant dotted landscape of the films, there is no room for laughter, or even a smile. The “heroes” are almost as corrupted as the villains and the only ray of decency shines from the films’ pathetic victims and few female characters played with heartbreaking humanity by the lovely Rebecca Hall (as a grief stricken mother) and Maxine Peak (as a decent detective amongst wolves).

It’s certainly not perfect and it’s anything but pretty (although there is some lyricism to the cinematography, particularly the first installment shot on 16mm) but it’s definitely worth a look. By the way, reading the books won’t entirely spoil anything – the film adaptations vary drastically at times and even omit the second book (1978) of Peace’s tetralogy completely.

Click here for the rest of Red Riding Trilogy

See more: Movies 2010s Crime Drama

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Posted on February 14, 2010

Richard Price is known for his ear for dialog and realistic portrayals of complex people and communities. In Lush Life, his highly praised eighth novel, he turns his sharp focus on the Lower East Side of the past couple of years, a neighborhood in transition. Price says:

?here are about five worlds down there, and they're oblivious of each other. Well, every once in a while these worlds collide, and when they do it is usually on a street corner at four in the morning. The kids from the projects know that the kids inland have money – put a gun in their face, you can usually score enough cash to buy some Chinese takeout. But the kid whose face you're putting the gun in thinks he's in a movie, he's got his load on, he does the wrong thing – and BOOM, headlines for five days. Then everybody goes back to normal.”

The BOOM incident in this case is a robbery gone bad that echos the LES murder of actress Nicole DuFresne. The subsequent investigation and turmoil that follows fills the pages of this page turning novel. And while I've heard some complaints about the slower second half of the book, which are fair, it's slower parts are still more intriguing than most books out there.

Price was a huge inspiration and later a collaborator on The Wire, and for fans of that show Lush Life will be addition to the pantheon of intelligent crime sagas. For us New Yorkers, it's an intriguing look at our surroundings chock full of recognizable locations (Schiller's Liquor Bar and Milk and Honey,?for example). It's completely deserving of all the praise it's received, and with Price adapting (slowly) his own work for the big screen, this is one of the few page to screen adaptations I'm looking forward to.

See more: Books Crime Fiction Lower East Side

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Posted on May 25, 2009