The Cut By George Pelecanos

The Cut, written by George Pelecanos is a book written about a Marine Corps Veteran, Spero Lucas. Spero is having some difficulty adapting to his new “civilian” lifestyle after coming home from Iraq. To help cope with this, he finds himself in an interesting new career. Spero helps people find their “lost” property. He is not picky about who his clients, whether he must recover stolen jewelry or hunt down stolen marijuana, as long as he receives a paycheck. Another twist is that Spero comes from a racially mixed background which both helps and hinders him in is work. Pelecanos creates a character with military background, that comes from a mixed racial family and works the risky business as a private investigator to create a complex mystery

With the author, George Pelecanos’s, use of descriptive words and what I know about the Marine Corps, I could create a picture in my mind of what Lucas looked like. He states that Lucas was a white, twenty-nine-year-old male, who stood five-foot and eleven-inches tall with a one hundred eighty-five-pound build. He has short black hair, green eyes and a flat stomach. You can also assume that he was in decent shape, and filled with knowledge. Being a veteran who just returned from Iraq, He was used to being in dangerous and intense situations. Therefore, when the story starts out and Spero is interested in being hired by an imprisoned drug dealer to recover stolen drugs, he of course accepted the job. Because of his service, he felt that he missed out on a great deal of things back home, and thought this was the perfect opportunity to “make up for lost time”, and that cut at the end was just another incentive. Throughout the story, it makes references to his time in Iraq and his complicated

His father is dead, and the family does not hear much from the sister. So, it is the mother, and the two brothers. which is where it gets even more complex. Some of his family members are white and others African American. With Lucas’s intense job, it seems that his family and many others that he truly cares about somehow get intertwined with his “business”. Leo, who is African American, is one of Spero’s brothers, is a high school teacher, and is spoken about the most throughout the story. Because, Leo is African American and living in the suburbs, one can imagine the stereotypical comments and situations he encounters. Especially when he is involved with Spero’s job and ends up getting drug into helping Spero get a student of his back from some