david_doody-small.jpg I’m currently (finally) making my way through the last couple season’s of HBO’s unbelievably good series The Wire. None of the episodes ever disappoint, but I have come to watch closely, near the end of the opening credits, to see who the teleplay and story are by. If the names Richard Price or George Pelecanos come up I know I’m in for an extra special episode.

If you’re a fan of The Wire then you will want to get yourself the novels of Price and Pelecanos. These novels are as gritty as any episode and with writers like these it is no wonder that an extremely literate bookseller friend of mine once quipped that watching The Wire is as substantial as reading a good novel. Price has been “called one of the greatest dialogue writers of all time”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/books/04kaku.html and the empathy that Pelecanos makes the reader feel for all of his characters is unmatched.

There is great crime fiction being written today, you just might need to look a little deeper than the face-outs at your local Barnes and Noble. If you’re looking for a place to start I’d recommend Price’s Lush Life and Drama City by Pelecanos.

(Go “here”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93655107 to hear why selling shoes was the best job Pelecanos ever had.)

Bio: David Doody is Guernica’s “blog”:http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/ editor and a founding editor of InDigest Magazine. Read his last recommendation “here”:http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/1128/staff_pick_david_doody_1/.