Pelecanos published his first book in 1992 when he was 35, and his tenth novel, Hell to Pay, was released in 2002. The books are animated by dialogue that sounds like the real thing, spoken by representatives of a variety of classes and ethnic groups. They include pop-culture references to movies (the Blaxploitation epics of the 1970s, for instance), to sports (most of the male characters, white and black, love playing basketball and talking about the pro and college game), and, on practically every page, to music (Should Jimi Hendrix recordings be put in the pop or soul bins?). Since the mid-1990s, Pelecanos has enjoyed considerable acclaim within the world of American crime writing and has attained crossover literary status in Europe. His latest book has received the sort of enthusiastic mainstream attention in the United States that could lead to his being recognized as a "real" literary figure.