The Man Who Came Uptown

By George Pelecanos

Mulholland Books     2018

262 pages     Noir

Although The Man Who Came Uptown reads more like literary fiction than it does mystery or noir, George Pelecanos is widely understood to be a writer of crime fiction. He is also a television writer and producer. I watched two of his shows and loved them—The Wire and ‘Treme. He also wrote The Deuce.

The reason why this feels more literary than crime is that Pelecanos is an incredible storyteller who has a gift for creating believable characters with a lot of depth. Basically there are four main characters: Phil Ornazian, Thaddeus Ward, Michael Hudson, and Miss Anna. Ornazian is a private investigator who is willing and able to do bad stuff, but he feels that he is more a vigilante—killing, and robbing for the good of the community. His ethics, however, are a bit blurred, but he comes across as likable, mostly because he goes home to his wife and family every day. His partner is Thaddeus Ward, an ex-cop and now bail bondsman. Together they target criminals that they know have a lot of money. They contract some of their work; the rest they take the spoils.

Michael Hudson, on the other hand, is a nice guy who is in the county jail awaiting trial. While at the jail, he discovers literature through the gentle recommendations of the young librarian, Miss Anna. Charges are dropped through the efforts of Ornazian, and Michael returns to his mother’s home, determined to make a new start on life. He is such a believable and likable character that I was anxious to complete the book because I cared so much about him.

Of course there is crime. Ornazian reminds Michael that “he owes” him, so Michael drives for him when Ornazian and Ward go on the attack. The beauty of the book lies not so much with the plot and the crime story but with the relationship Michael develops with the librarian and with the joy Miss Anna has in recommending books to the jail prisoners. She teaches Michael to love reading through the books she recommends. The first thing he does when he gets out of jail is to buy a bookcase. Michael thinks, “When he read a book, he wasn’t in his cage anymore.” As a reader and a librarian, this brought joy to my heart.

There is a redemptive aspect of this book that moves The Man Who Came Uptown out of classic crime noir to literary fiction and moves the reader to remember the books that saved her. It was, for me, a great introduction to a wonderful author.