THE WAY HOME

When Thomas Flynn leaves his son, seventeen year old Chris, at Pine Ridge,a juvenile prison near Washington, D.C., his heart is broken but his mindis made up: Chris will have to pay for the mistakes he's made. Inside,Chris is exposed to kids from a different D.C. than the comfortable one heknew - one less remote from the street fights, car chases, and marijuanadeals that got him here in the first place. A decade later, Chris and the friends he made at Pine Ridge seemreformed. Chris has a job, thanks to his father, a girlfriend, and his ownapartment. But when he and the others are inadvertently caught up in aburglary, old habits and worse instincts rise to the surface, threateningthis new-found stability with sudden treachery and violence. With thedrama, compassion, and urgency for which Pelecanos is celebrated, The WayHome travels the streets of Washington, D.C. and tells the story of itspeople, and the tensions that always linger just out of sight, circlingback again and again to that clapboard house on Livingston Street whereThomas and Chris Flynn's rocky relationship moves from distrust and scorntoward a flawed, but real, redemption. How far will a father go to save his son? That question is the beatingpulse beneath George Pelecanos's spectacular new novel, a page-turningstory of rebellion, greed, and the high price of a second chance.