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King Suckerman

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki

King Suckerman is a 1997 novel by George Pelecanos. It is the second of four books comprising the D.C. Quartet. It follows The Big Blowdown, and precedes The Sweet Forever and Shame the Devil. It introduces the characters Dimitri Karras, Marcus Clay, and Clarence Tate, who appear in later novels

Explanation of the novel's title

The title comes from the title of a fictional "Blacksploitation" film that many of the novel's characters are eager to see.

Characters

    Dimitri Karras and Marcus Tate are lifelong Washington D.C. residents in their late twenties. They are unlikely old friends who play Basketball together regularly. Karras is a white college educated slacker and small time weed dealer, while Clay is black, fought in Vietnam, and is a highly motivated owner of a record store.  Wilton Cooper and Bobby Roy Clagget are their evil counterparts. Both are southern country boys.  Clagget is a late teen white psychopathic killer, Cooper is a 30 something black repeat offender who is big and vicious enough to be the boss in prison. Eddie Marchetti is a failed mobster working as, essentially, a middleman.  His much smarter assistant Clarence Tate is planning to leave as soon as they finish unloading a cache of stolen merchandise.  Ronald and Russel Thomas are criminals who join Cooper in Clagett for a job in D.C.

Ronald is a very dangerous hardened criminal who drags along his skinny and ineffective brother.

Plot Summary

Cooper meets Clagget when he witnesses him commit a murder and helps him escape. He is attracted to him sexually, and as a killer and takes him to D.C. with him joined by the Thomas brothers. They arrive to make a cocaine deal through Eddie Marchetti at the same time that Karras drags along Clay to see Marchetti as a one time backup for his regular marijuana supplier, who is on vacation. Karras loses control when Marchetti hits a girl in his office and he immediately punches Marchetti. When Clagett tries to shoot Karras, Clay hits him hard and then, on a whim, grabs the $20,000 down payment for the cocaine and they leave. Cooper wants excitement more than money, and they kill the heavily armed bikers that Marchetti set them up to buy cocaine from. Rather than leave town before the police find them Cooper insists on going after Clay, who he calls "Trouble Man". He finds Clay's store and murders the only clerk, the brother of a man Clay served in Vietnam with. Clay is devastated by guilt since even he doesn't know why he took the money in the first place. he recruits Karras, who never fired a gun and the dead clerk's brother to ambush and kill Cooper and his gang. Karras turns him down, but then agrees because he is wracked with guilt about selling Marijuana to a teenager who then died in a car crash. They are quietly aided by Tate. who wants Cooper dead after he threatens Tate's daughter. He sets up an ambush of Cooper's gang. In the end Clay offers both Tate and Karras jobs leading to their roles in Pelecanos' next novel; The Sweet Forever.

References[edit]


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