Book review: The Martini Shot and other short stories

ALL you ever wanted to know about being on the set of a fledging American TV crimes series but were afraid to ask probably wouldn’t even cut it as a subtitle, but that is effectively what the main story in this new book is about.

The Martini Shot and other short stories

George Pelecanos 

Orion, €28.99;

ebook, €11.99

Almost every one of the jobs listed in the standard closing credits — from key grip to executive producer — is given a bit of flesh and blood by Pelecanos.

Fans of The Wire will know his name as one of the creative forces behind a TV series which, in its heyday, was being routinely described as one of the best dramas ever seen on television.

The title story in Pelecanos’ new collection makes up just short of half of the book, and is the best the book has to offer. In it, we are brought on to the set of a crime series in season one.

The narrator is one of the scriptwriters so, as well as getting an insight into his work, we get a sense of what the others are doing too, how actors are trying to expand their careers, how the execs are trying to expand their wealth, and how the crew is trying to keep a good gig going.

It’s all going along by the numbers — with a couple of intricately described sex scenes that have so much huffing and puffing, heaving and harrumphing, and even some carpet burns to the soles of the feet (don’t ask) that they are almost exhausting to read — until someone gets shot and the story takes off. While it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it’s a decent, if slightly undercooked, crime caper.

One of the nice stylistic devices is the use of script layout as the lines between the reality of the story and the writer’s work blur.

Elsewhere, Pelecanos has a nice crack off the Irish-American who is building up his stock sense of being Irish. Never having visited the home country, this Plastic Paddy has managed to persuade himself that he’s Irish to the bone but his buddies find the metamorphosis less convincing.

Pelecanos gives a couple of arresting insights: “We listened to a tape Paddy’d made, a balladeer named Christy Moore.

He had a nice voice, with those whistles and pipes and shit like that in the background, but it sounded like something my father listened to, Vic Damone with an accent. I really thought Paddy had taken this Mick thing too far.”

Entertaining as the book is, most of the shorter pieces read like a series of sketches that Pelecanos wasn’t interested in developing further. The short story is not where he shines.

There’s nothing in it that holds a candle to cracking character-driven crime novels such as his Drama City or The Way Home, for instance.

The short story offers an opportunity for an intense glimpse through a narrow opening but, for the most part here, it’s just a piece of prose that ends earlier.