The Way Home by George Pelecanos

From the Publisher

Christopher Flynn is trying to get it right. After years of trouble and rebellion that enraged his father and nearly cost him his life, he has a steady job in his father's company, he's seriously dating a woman he respects, and, aside from the distrust that lingers in his father's eyes, his mistakes are firmly in the past.

One day on the job, Chris and his partner come across a temptation almost too big to resist. Chris does the right thing, but old habits and instincts rise to the surface, threatening this new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With his father and his most trusted friends, he takes one last chance to blast past the demons trying to pull him back.

Like Richard Price or William Kennedy, Pelecanos pushes his characters to the extremes, their redemption that much sweeter because it is so hard fought. Pelecanos has long been celebrated for his unerring ability to portray the conflicts men feel as they search and struggle for power and love in a world that is often harsh and unforgiving but can ultimately be filled with beauty.

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Pelecanos (The Turnaround) probes the volatile and fragile relationship between a father, Thomas Flynn, and his son, Chris, in this less than satisfying effort. As a rebellious teen into drugs, Chris had minor brushes with the law and did a stint in juvenile prison. Now 26, he's working for his father's D.C.-area carpet installation business and staying clean. Still, Thomas remains disappointed in his son's lack of achievement or ambition, and Chris remains resentful that he's not accepted for who he is. A rather tired device, a bag of stolen money found by Chris and a friend and fellow former inmate, serves to set in motion a chain of actions that will lead to critical decisions for both Flynns. Pelecanos adroitly sketches the obstacles and temptations that face juvenile offenders in and after prison, but this novel, with its dispassionate style, never manages to generate high suspense or evoke much sympathy for its characters. Author tour. (May)

Julie Elliott - Library Journal

Pelecanos mines familiar territory in his new novel about the strained relationship between a father and son in Washington, DC. Chris Flynn disappointed his father terribly when, after a string of juvenile crimes, he finally committed one serious enough to land himself in Pine Ridge, a facility for juvenile offenders. Now an adult, Chris is working for his father's carpet installation company, leading a clean life and hoping to earn his father's respect. Trouble comes in the form of $50,000 found at a job site and someone from Chris's Pine Ridge past. While Pelecanos has a knack for strong characterization and a clear sense of place, the similarities to his work on HBO's The Wire and his recent The Turnaround make this novel somewhat of a disappointment to regular fans.

Kirkus Reviews

A crime novel, yes, but the talented Pelecanos (The Turnaround, 2008, etc.) shoves it out of its comfort zone. He needn't worry, 17 year old Chris Flynn brashly assures his father as the door of Pine Ridge Reformatory is about to shut behind him: "I know how to jail." How did Chris get there, decently brought up kid that he is-loving parents, solid middle-class home? He has no idea. Oh, he can talk about "Good Chris, Bad Chris," but that riff no longer satisfies the way it once did. All he knows for sure is that Bad Chris brought him within an inch of killing someone during a wild, drug-filled night that ended with a string of exasperated D.C. cops running him down. Thus his sentence to Pine Ridge, leaving a frustrated father and a heartbroken mother wondering where they went wrong. Unexpectedly, however, Pine Ridge proves to be a way of starting over. Bleak and dehumanizing though it is, Chris grows up there, copes with adversity, makes better friends, keeps Bad Chris caged. Ten years later, he's put a life together. He has a worthwhile girlfriend. His always thorny relationship with his father is at least manageable. Lulled, he thinks the past is safely buried. But when a pair of killers show up claiming he has something that belongs to them, Chris learns how inexorably the past is prologue. Redemption the hard way, well-crafted and deeply felt. Author tour to New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C.

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