The Big Blowdown (Five Star)

I wanted to read this because Pelecanos writes a lot about Washington DC and I wanted to read some fiction set in that city. There's no doubt that he gets the details correct, and the book has the right feel for DC. It is also carefully plotted, with all the parts fitting together neatly, and clues dropped at the beginning paying off nicely for the reader. Women characters in the book do not get a lot of development, and some of the word choices have not aged well since the novel was written. But as a story of neighborhood buddies whose lives take different paths and then are brought together again, it is a solid tale well told.