Everyone is all about George Pelecanos these days. We interviewed him, he was on the Kojo Nnamdi Show, and he’s appeared in various area bookstores to pimp his new crime thriller, The Night Gardener.

If Pelecanos is known for anything, it’s the local references he liberally infuses his writings with. Criminals and the police that chase them live and work in the seediest parts of the region, giving readers a glimpse into the underworld of the Washington Metro area. While his writing is sometimes stilted and characters predictable, the local references make for interesting reading. Many of the references double as commentary on hot-button issues, ranging from gentrification to the state of D.C. schools. And since I am working my way through his latest, I thought I’d make a periodic series out of his references to the city in which we live, work, and play.

On Gentrification:

Now properties were being purchased and refurbished all over town, in places that doubters had said would never come back: Far Northeast and Southeast, Petworth and Park View, LeDroit, and the waterfront area around South Capitol, where ground was set to break on the new baseball stadium. Even here in Ivy City, For Sale and Sold signs could be seen on seemingly undesirable properties. Apartment buildings that had been shells for squatters, shooters, and rats were being gutted and turned into condos. Houses were bought and flipped six months later. Workers had begun to remove the rotting wood, put glass in the window frames, and brush on fresh coats of paint. Roofers hauled shingles and tar buckets up ladders, and real estate agents stood on the sidewalks, nervously aware of their surroundings as they talked on their cellphones.

“They gonna fix up this shithole, too?” said Gaskins.

“Like puttin a Band-Aid on a bullet hole, you ask me,” said Brock.