Pelecanos, George. The Turnaround.(Brief article)(Book review)

* Pelecanos, George. The Turnaround. Little, Brown. Aug. 2008. c.304p. ISBN 978-0-316-15647-9. $24.99. F

In 1972, three white teenagers drive into a solidly African American neighborhood bent on "rais[ing] a little hell." What follows is tragic: one boy is left dead, another scarred for life, and a young African American is in prison. Thirty years later, two survivors of that fated afternoon accidentally reconnect and explore accommodation. But a third party to these past events has more sinister plans. Crime figures prominently in Pelecanos's latest depiction of life in the grittier streets of Washington, DC, but the author of The Night Gardener has always been more …