The Martini Shot: A Novella and Short Stories

A seasoned claims investigator tracks a supposedly dead man from Miami to Brazil, only to be thrown off his game by a kid from the local slum. An aging loser takes a last stab at respectability by becoming a police informant. A Greek-American couple adopts an interracial trio of sons and then struggles to keep their family together, giving us a stirring bit of background on one of Pelecanos' most beloved protagonists, Spero Lucas. In the title novella--which takes its name from Hollywood slang for the last shot of the day--we go behind the scenes of a television cop show, where a writer gets caught up in a drama more real than anything he could have conjured for a script.
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