“ An unforgettable picture of inner-city decay and despair” (USA Today), the classic novel by Richard Price, the bestselling author of Lush Life and a writer on The Wire— now with a new introduction by the author.
Rocco Klein, a veteran homicide detective in a city across the river from Manhattan, has lost his appetite for the thrill of the street. When a warm June night brings yet another drug murder, Rocco has no sense that the case is anything special. A twenty-year-old steps forward to confess, but a little digging reveals that he’ s never been in any kind of trouble, whereas his brother runs a crew of street-corner cocaine dealers— “ clockers” — in a nearby housing project. Soon Rocco is sure that Victor Dunham is innocent, sure that his brother Strike is the real killer, and suddenly Rocco’ s hunger for the job is back.
Driven and shrewd, Strike uses violence when he has to, but his primary concern is survival. He has been clocking for almost a year; if he could somehow move up to the ounce business, he might get off the street before it breaks him. But then Rocco Klein begins hounding him, and Strike’ s life becomes a nightmare.
At once an explosive murder mystery and a riveting portrait of two lives on a collision course, Clockers is a spectacular achievement, a harrowing but vital portrait of city life.
