Does for Washington, D.C., what Raymond Chandler did for LA. Strange takes us into the D.C. the tourists and politicians don't know: from neat rowhouse neighborhoods to the D.C. Central Detention Facility. The title, The Blue Flame, refers to the fact that Strange, an ex-cop, still has that burning cop curiosity. I hope it's never extinguished.
The Blue Flame operates in a mostly quiet register, and I read it as a book about aging, and about the tools still at your disposal when youth is a long-ago memory. This shouldn’t be your first Pelecanos novel — start with the D.C. Quartet — but it is a fitting return for both the character and the author.
