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Hell to Pay (Derek Strange and Terry Quinn #2)

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 1,104 ratings · 68 reviews

In Hell to Pay, Washington, D.C., is just one more thug in an endless list of thugs who brutalize the poor, the weak, and the young. The primary victim this time is a rising star on Derek Strange's Pee Wee football team. In this city where making T-shirts for bereaved families of young murder victims is a full-time business, the boy is an accidental victim in a war between...more

Paperback, 360 pages

Published 2003 by Phoenix (first published 2002)

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Feb 03, 2009 Dan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

another addictive pelecanos novel (my second). this basically deepens the universe created in right as rain, and does a nice job propping up its next installment (soul circus, which i'll undoubtedly get to in the coming months). this one has less of the sensational shoot 'em up stuff that sometimes scars the plausibility of right as rain, choosing instead to get inside the heads of each of its characters. very effective as a portrait of poverty, particularly in its look at characters on the peri...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Ensiform rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

The second Derek Strange novel. While his hot-headed white partner, Terry Quinn, is hired to rescue a runaway girl from a pimp, Strange gets involved in a high-profile murder case after one of the young boys on his peewee football team is shot. With the police closing in fast, Strange must decide whether he wants the arrogant gang bangers who did the shooting to be arrested, or suffer the rough justice of a vicious drug dealer who has a personal interest in the case.

It’s another solid crime stor...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Aaron Arnold rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, read-in-2010

Another book with connection to The Wire: George Pelecanos is a well-known Washington, DC crime novelist infamous for writing the penultimate episodes for each season where terrible things happen to major characters. This was the first book of his I picked up and though I've read and enjoyed a few others by now, I think this is the best one I've read so far. It's the second book of his Derek Strange series, featuring Strange and his fellow private investigator (and fellow ex-cop) Terry Quinn try...more

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Jul 13, 2009 Sibyl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Interesting to see that other readers do not find Hell to Pay and Right as Rain as high up on their approval list as I do. I just finished reading Hell to Pay and found it even stronger than the first one. Now the cat is out of the bag, too, as in searching for the book on the Goodreads library I see that there is a third novel, perhaps completing a trilogy with the same cast of characters. I see the recently checked out Pelecanos from my library is the final one. That means I'm going to be stuc...more Interesting to see that other readers do not find Hell to Pay and Right as Rain as high up on their approval list as I do. I just finished reading Hell to Pay and found it even stronger than the first one. Now the cat is out of the bag, too, as in searching for the book on the Goodreads library I see that there is a third novel, perhaps completing a trilogy with the same cast of characters. I see the recently checked out Pelecanos from my library is the final one. That means I'm going to be stuck with my nose in a good book for another couple of days.

Pelecanos' series on cable, "Wired", is not for everyone. It's difficult to take in the sad lives of kids stuck in poverty who see their only way out getting 'in the game' of drugs and prostitution. It isn't all that easy either to root for the good guys either. Pelecanos doesn't whitewash anything, yet the endings of the two of his books I've just completed are satisfactory. Unrealistic, perhaps, that the two good guys always get their man, or even their woman. Yet, the thrill in the novels is the journey, the authenticity, the sense of deep understanding of procedure whether it be police or the drug world. How does Pelecanos know the inner workings of his lead black investigator and how is he able to convince me that his characters arise out of truth?

Maybe my high rating of the two novels are based upon being led to believe that the author really has a firm grasp on the world he writes about, the underside of the D.C. I visited once upon a time. Maybe I like to feel that there are good women out there who attract men with dark pasts, men who are worthy of their love. Women who don't have blinders on, who are worthy to be heroines of their own stories.

I can't wait to get into the third novel to see where else Mr. Pelecanos wants to take this team of Strange and Quinn. I have criticized other books because the villains had no redeeming characterists, no reason to devote so much attention to them because who cares whether they survive or beat the rap? Pelecanos figures out a way or a reason to make the reader want to know more about his criminals. He humanizes them, just as he does his investigative due, neither of whom admits to being perfect. (less)

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Jun 09, 2012 Edward rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the fourth Peleconos crime novel I've read and I haven't been disappointed in any of them. Pelecanos can ratchet up suspense and tells a story well, even when he veers off into the personal lives of his detectives. I never mind these side-excursions, knowing that he's always coming back on track to the chief problem, the solving of some usually senseless and cold-blooded murder in the crime-ridden milieu of Washington, D.C. In this story, it's the pointless and careless shooting of a 12...more This is the fourth Peleconos crime novel I've read and I haven't been disappointed in any of them. Pelecanos can ratchet up suspense and tells a story well, even when he veers off into the personal lives of his detectives. I never mind these side-excursions, knowing that he's always coming back on track to the chief problem, the solving of some usually senseless and cold-blooded murder in the crime-ridden milieu of Washington, D.C. In this story, it's the pointless and careless shooting of a 12 year old, one who was a pee-wee football player and seemed to have a real future ahead of him, not a drug-riddled, violence-filled one of so many of his peers.

What makes Pelecanos so good is his even-handedness. All of his characters are rounded and have both flaws and virtues. Derek Strange, a black investigator, has trouble being faithful to his woman friend; his white associate, Terry Quinn has what is euphemistically called an anger management problem, and that macho trait gets him in repeated trouble. But they're tough and shrewd guys who are good at heart. In a subplot, they search for a runaway girl and are tipped off by a tough teenage street whore, but even with her one of them thinks "this girl had been loved at one time". There's always the hope of some kind of redemption for these human dregs, even if not often realized. These lost souls of the city are shaped by a brutally bleak environment - missing parents, poor schools, poverty (but still mesmerized by ubiquitous advertising which promises a materially good life ), easy access to the equalizer of power, firearms, the list goes on and on.

Why peer into this hell? At one point, Quinn suggests a partial answer in his part-time work in a bookstore, "One thing you learned working here was that everyone has something worthwhile to say if you took the time to try to listen." Pelecanos does that in his fiction - out of these slum streets come characters that despite all of their depraved behavior are still recognizably human. The killer, a moral monster who has no feelings for anyone, even grabs our sympathy, at least for a few seconds, when confronted with being shot in head involuntarily urinates with terror.

Life is never simple; at the book's end, Strange has agreed to work for a slum gang lord who has been arraigned. Why, he is asked, when the man represents everything he is opposed to? Strange agrees , but he owes this man, having killed his father 30 years ago when he was on the police force. The man has done Strange some favors as well, good and evil are not always defined by a justice system of arbitrary laws. It's a world unto itself, if you take the time to "listen".

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Nov 13, 2010 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

Reading Hell to Pay, I realized my problem with George Pelecanos. He takes himself too damn seriously. Would a little humor lessen the impact? It's not that the characters never have fun, but even the descriptions of the good times are serious - tinged with regret, perhaps, or the memory of previous sadness. Sometimes I'm in the mood for that, but this time I wasn't. Need to let some time pass before reading number three.

That said, Pelecanos is still at the top of his game. The first Strange/Qui...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Perry Whitford rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hell to Pay is the second outing for Pelecanos' Washington DC based "salt and pepper" private detective duo. Derek Strange, who owns the company, is a fifty-something black man with a love of the street, classic soul music and a reluctance to settle down, despite the love of a good woman. Terry Quinn is a sometime employee, a thirty-something white man with a love of Springsteen and Steve Earle, a loners mentality and an overly-sensitive response to slights, which usually leads to violence.
They...more

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May 18, 2010 Ann rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the second in a trilogy by George Pelecanos, the first being Right as Rain. We meet Derek Strange and Terry Quinn again, both private investigators in Washington, DC, both former cops and both men with the desire to do the right thing and help the kids in the area to break out of the cycle of poverty, drugs and violence. Troubled by demons themselves, the story is as much about their personal crises and journey through life as it is the story of a tragic shooting death and the search for...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Byron rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Coaches of underprivileged little league football teams

The fact that I enjoy these George Pelecanos books so much doesn't make me the equivalent of guys in prison who shank people for the latest James Patterson, does it? (There was a big thing in the Times a while back about how those books are written and who reads them. You should look it up. It's one of the more ridiculous things you'll ever read.) I feel like these books are a cut above the average crime fiction BS, because they describe things that are really happening in the ghetto (I'm assumi...more

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Dec 22, 2010 Erik rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cool-crime, gritty-fiction

Another Pelecanos story with plenty of gritty street crimes and the flawed but righteous individuals who stand against them. Derek Strange is certainly the latter; an opportunistic private investigator with a healthy appetite for anonymous sex, regardless of his righteous indignation for the daily injustices he witnesses on a regular basis. As is Pelecanos's talent, this story is cleverly layered between Strange's latest case, which submerges him into the D.C. drug underworld, and Terry Quinn, a...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Simon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Hell to Pay By George Pelecanos
This is great modern hard boiled crime fiction
set on the mean streets of Washington DC. Not
the DC of Capitol hill but the much maligned and
forgotten sprawl of drug and crime ridden city
streets.
This is a great story of murder and revenge and
finding and losing runaways that make it a must
read. I must also find more of George's books
especially as now he is also writing songs with
his hero Steve Wynn who some of you might have
figured out the title of this book...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Ray rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wish I could give this a 3.5. Reminded me of Michael Connelly in the sense that his main character is a sort of anti hero. Derek Strange is a complex man with moral conflicts of his own but is also driven by a strong sense of right and wrong in the bigger world. Connelly does a good job as an author keeping the focus at the individual level whereas Pelecanos flirts with making statements about systemic change.

My concern is that his message is a little muddy as so much if the story and this ty...more

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Oct 08, 2010 Larry Bassett rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, fiction

What can I say? I love George Pelacanos. But tears in my eyes at the end of Hell to Pay? It was too much like And They All Lived Happily Ever After, wasn’t it?

With Pelacanos, language is never plain or simple. It is always dressed up in descriptive adjectives and proper nouns. Product placement is a Pelacanos trademark. Hell to Pay is like a guided tour of metropolitan DC and its suburbs. And, of course, the Wheaton Mall appears in its usual cameo role. As does Bonifant Street and Sligo Avenue i...more What can I say? I love George Pelacanos. But tears in my eyes at the end of Hell to Pay? It was too much like And They All Lived Happily Ever After, wasn’t it?

With Pelacanos, language is never plain or simple. It is always dressed up in descriptive adjectives and proper nouns. Product placement is a Pelacanos trademark. Hell to Pay is like a guided tour of metropolitan DC and its suburbs. And, of course, the Wheaton Mall appears in its usual cameo role. As does Bonifant Street and Sligo Avenue in downtown Silver Spring. George takes his cuts at downtown revitalization driving out the ma & pa stores and Whole Foods with its “$5 tomatoes.” He has his usual commentary about social issues like the curfew and gun laws through his dialogues. And the street murder that plays a major role in the storyline doesn’t happen until over half way through the book. But the first half of the book is no less entertaining for the absence of the plot core; there are plenty of subplots to keep the reader busy and entertained. With Pelacanos I search for a better word than “entertained” since so much of his writing is glorious b-movie and comic book caricatures. The landscape is so comfortable and familiar if you have read other Pelacanos novels.

Some writers might turn on the radio in their car. Not Pelacanos.

Driving home, Strange rolled up the windows of the Brougham and turned the AC on low. He popped a War tape, Why Can’t We Be Friends, into the deck, and he found that beautiful ballad of theirs, “So.” He got down low in the bench , his wrist resting on the stop of the wheel, and he began to sing along. For a while, anyway, sealed in his car, listening to his music, he found some kind of peace.

Some character descriptions might be non-descript but Pelacanos is anything but ho-hum.

Quinn was replacing his cell in his bag when he noticed a girl standing before him. She wore boot-cut jeans and a spaghetti-string pink shirt with a cartoon illustration of a Japanese girl holding a guitar slung low, a la Keith. Her shoulder bag was white, oval, and plastic. Her dirty-blond hair fell to her shoulders. Her hips were narrow, her breasts small, mostly nipple and visible through the shirt. She was pale, with bland brown eyes and a tan birthmark, shaped like a strawberry, on her neck. She wore wire-rim prescription eyeglasses, granny style. She was barely cute, and not even close to pretty. Quinn put her in her midteens, maybe knocking on the door of seventeen, if that.

Sunday breakfast out? Pelacanos asks us along.

Strange ate a feta-cheese-and-onion omelette sprinkled with Texas Pete hot sauce, and a half-smoke side, and washed it down with a couple of cups of coffee. Some after-church types were at the counter and some sat in the old red-cushioned booths. The diner was white tiles and white walls, kept clean by Billy and his longtime employee, Etta.

Pelacanos has a pattern but, for me, it doesn’t get old as long as I don’t read a string of his books back to back. His one-a-year publishing schedule is just right for me. His storylines are multifaceted but not so complicated that I lose my way. He lets me see the forest and the trees.
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Jun 03, 2009 Kellie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: strange-series, series, mystery-thrillers, 2005-reads

(#2 of the Derek Strange series)-This was a really good one. Better than #1. Derek is coaching a football team. One of the kids gets shot by a thug. Derek and his partner go on their own search for this guy. In the mean time, Derek is asked to help find a runaway turned hooker. He puts Quinn on the case.
Derek is battling a weakness for massage tables and really starts to question his life.
These books tell a hard story of the DC streets. They are excellent in drawing the picture and putting you...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Josh rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: private_detective, own, read_2012

A painstaking mural of the metamorphosis of Washington DC from a metropolis to murder-polis whose inhabitants are at once menacing and heart warming. It's this chalk and cheese persona of Pelecanos' characters that draws a somewhat translucent line between good and evil in the third world urban sprawl of the major US city. Victims of circumstance turned hardened thugs turned kid killers find themselves the focus of PI Derek Strange as he seeks the right kind of justice for the murder of an innoc...more A painstaking mural of the metamorphosis of Washington DC from a metropolis to murder-polis whose inhabitants are at once menacing and heart warming. It's this chalk and cheese persona of Pelecanos' characters that draws a somewhat translucent line between good and evil in the third world urban sprawl of the major US city. Victims of circumstance turned hardened thugs turned kid killers find themselves the focus of PI Derek Strange as he seeks the right kind of justice for the murder of an innocent caught as a causality of wanna-be tough guys in their pursuit of notoriety and hood fame.

Protagonist, Derek Strange and part time side kick, Terry Quinn are disassociated to a degree, with each taking leads on separate cases - Terry's, to save a teenage runaway from a life of prostitute, and Derek's to solve a murder. While maintaining a brotherly bond, the disassociation is more than physical with a distinct lack of camaraderie evident in their limited exchanges. Whether this was a key point of note from Pelecanos or not remains to be seen.

The plot is elementary, as DC and its environs take centre stage. The culture, music, race, and criminal underbelly are paramount to the inhabitant’s survival amidst everyday chaos and the good guys who try to make the streets a safer place. Not so much a straight PI novel as more a serrated one man army fostering hope where light fails to shine.

‘Hell To Pay’ reminded me much of the DC Quartet where the peripherals (storefronts, passer-by exchanges, music, current day sports etc.) promote such ambiance as to transfer the reader direct to locale. The plot itself, whilst engaging wasn’t the key element to this second instalment in the Strange and Quinn series, rather their growth as friends and individuals alike with the cases more a means to an end.

If you like the Wire and Pelecanos’ fantastic DC Quartet, this is for you – 3.5 stars.

Side Note: My perception of Derek Strange is reminiscent of the Wire's Lester Freamon - a wise old man who still packs a punch and is more attuned to enjoying life and giving second chances rather than throwing the book and busting heads.
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Sep 15, 2010 ABC Group rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There's very little for me to dislike in the Derek Strange/Terry Quinn series. In some ways, these series books remind me of great television like The Wire, whereas other Pelecanos books are more for social commentary and just damn good crime writing.

That's not to say that this series is not heavy handed with social politics, it's just a bit more Bunk and McNulty friendly, if you know what I'm sayin.

Once again, anyone who digs Pelecanos should check out this series.

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Mar 30, 2013 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This one was a little grittier than Right as Rain, and was a little harder to read for me. Maybe it just made me uncomfortable to think about what a nice bubble I live in, completely unaware of the awful things going on just a few miles away in other parts of DC. Regardless, Pelecanos is a fantastic writer whose novels are really more of a love letter to the real DC. I love that he's created a protagonist in Derek Strange that is greatly flawed but that you still want to root for. Looking forwar...more

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Jan 02, 2011 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

As a former denizen of The Den, The Penthouse, The 9:30 Club, The Hanger Club, The Black Hole and other occasionally dubious haunts in NE/SE DC during the seventies,eighties and early nineties, Pelecanos' books are always fun for me. It's the "Hey! I've been there! I know that guy!" factor. There's nothing quite like the nostalgia for your slumming days.

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May 03, 2009 Don rated it 3 of 5 stars

What I really liked about this one was all the references to 70s soul music. Stevie Wonder, Al Green, The Commodores. Some of the scenes play out like a movie in that sense - I can almost hear the soundtrack while I'm visualizing the action. Other wise a compelling enough story and a fairly quick read. My first Pelecanos . . . I'll read more.

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Sep 04, 2007 Karschtl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: darkish, part_of_series, bc, 5-stars, read-in-2004

A black detective - former cop - in Washington, D.C. tries to keep the neighborhood clean and the kids out of trouble.
Sounds a bit like Alex Cross (James Patterson), but this guy is nothing like Alex. He has edges, and not only positive character traits. But his heart is in the right place.

When a little boy from the football-team he coaches is shot down in a fight between drugdealers and their customers, he gets very angry and wants to settle this case on his own conditions.

The Pelecanos' lan...more

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May 18, 2010 J. Robert Ewbank rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: a-good-read, mystery-thriller, novel

Interesting book and apparently one of a series. The main characters are interesting and keep you interested in finding what will happen to them. A good read.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

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Jan 11, 2012 Charity rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: holding-our-for-an-anti-hero

Riveting read. Strong characters. Derek Strange is one of those amazing literary figures who you just rally around and like even though his imperfections are front and center. Not afraid of complex social/cultural issues.

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Apr 26, 2009 Dale rated it 4 of 5 stars

New author for me. A quick, but good read. Setting is Washington DC and a look at inner city life. Language is a bit raw, but realistic. I'd read another by Plecanos.

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Nov 21, 2008 Maurean rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a raw & gritty hard-boiled mystery that really transported me through the shadows of the DC streets. Good characters - good storyline - good read

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Oct 16, 2011 Seth D Michaels rated it 3 of 5 stars

Really well-constructed - an unusual take on the noir murder mystery because the death in question doesn't happen until more than halfway through the book.

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Sep 14, 2009 Matt rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed it more than the first one; having approached it with a better idea of what to expect in terms of pace, character and social commentary.

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Mar 23, 2009 Cooper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Outstanding. I was really surprised by this one. Multidimensional, complex characters. Pelecanos knows DC and truly brings it to life.

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Mar 02, 2013 Andrew Neal rated it 4 of 5 stars

A really solid, completely self-contained story which nonetheless moves Strange and Quinn forward as characters. Good stuff.

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Nov 28, 2012 Patrick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Pelecanos is a good storyteller but a mediocre writer (there are no memorable sentences in any of his books I've read.)

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Jan 06, 2013 Chip rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery-thriller

Derek Strange / Terry Quinn number 2. Better than the first; very reminiscent in style and substance to The Wire.

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About George Pelecanos

George P. Pelecanos (born 1957 in Washington, D.C.) is an American author of detective fiction set primarily in the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. He is also a film and television producer and a television writer. He has worked extensively on the HBO series The Wire. His novels use an ensemble cast of characters, following their exploits across several generations. While there are...more

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Hell to Pay (Derek Strange and Terry Quinn #2)

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