Clockers

Eighteen years ago, Richard Price's first novel, The Wanderers, was hailed by Hubert Selby, Jr., in the New York Times Book Review as "an outstanding work of art." Three novels and a dozen years later, Price made an equally stunning debut in Hollywood with his screenplay for The Color of Money, which was nominated for an Academy Award. And in 1989 his script for Sea of Love was widely recognized as a key to that movie's great success. But none of these accomplishments prepares us for the power and the brilliance of his new novel: with Clockers, Richard Price takes a long step forward and joins the first rank of American writers. Rocco Klein, a veteran homicide detective in a city just outside Manhattan, has lost his appetite for the wild drama of the street. When a warm June night brings yet another drug murder, Rocco has no sense that the case is anything special. A black twenty-year-old steps forward to confess, but a little digging reveals...