incredibly bleak. Enjoyed Lush Life far more. ( )

In my not-so-humble estimation, the great social novel of the last 25 or 30 years.

I expected way more from this ( )

Dig down. Dig beneath the slang and bravado and you will find a gritty story about two very different human beings trying to survive the poverty stricken streets of New Jersey and New York. Rocco Klein has been a homicide detective for too long. He has seen it all and maybe he is too jaded because, as of late, the drug deaths he encounters inch him closer and closer to a yawning apathy. It might be time to retire. That is, until he meets young, barely out of his teens, Victor Dunham. Victor seems to be too innocent to be readily and eagerly confessing to a murder. Klein knows better. Who is Vincent covering for? Could it be his always in trouble drug-dealing brother? The cat and mouse game cops and crook play makes for an adventure (albeit a little long).
As an aside: Clockers is code for drug runners. Cocaine dealers, to be more specific ( )

I can almost guarantee that when I pick up a book by Richard Price that I am going to love it, and Clockers is no exception. Richard Price's characters are real, flesh and blood humans, no excuses made. With Rocco, the detective, there is no, "Rocco knew in his gut that the kid was lying; his intuition had never let him down." With Strike there is no, "Strike was misunderstood; behind all the criminal bluster there was a heart of gold." Of course Price would have phrased it a lot better than I, not being a writer! I love that they are flawed; there is no message, no underlying morals, it just is what it is, a look of humanity at its most bleak and at its most beautiful. ( )