(Photo via NY Mag)

I’m thoroughly enjoying Treme. By no large stretch of the imagination is this because of familiar key players involved: David Simon, Eric Overmyer, David Mills (R.I.P.), Clarke Peters, Wendell Pierce, George Pelecanos – to name a handful. Each one of these people were involved in The Wire, a show which I devoured in it’s five season entirety in roughly eight months.

Last night’s fourth episode, At the Foot of Canal Street, was written by Wire producer/writer mainstay George Pelecanos. He was responsible – at least as much that he wrote the episode – for penning the The Wire terminology Hamsterdam, which got a call-out in last night’s episode of Treme.

Before I go too far down the The Wire nerd-hole, let me just stop and say that Pelecanos is seriously good at writing television drama. Those that want to continue to search for correlations between the two show, let me redirect you to today’s AV Club’s Stray Observations about Treme.

Pelecanos is also an accomplished author. He’s published a slew of novels, all in the genre of gritty detective fiction. All his books are set in Washington, D.C. – interesting b/c the T.V. shows he’s worked on – counting The Wire and Treme – only deal with the capital city on an ancillary level.

Personally, I’m interested in checking out what Pelecanos has to offer via lexicon. A little cursory research suggests if you’re going to read one, read King Suckerman. The Library Journal called it “Cheech and Chong meet Pulp Fiction in a retro novel of Seventies drug culture.” Plus, I think Puff Daddy tried to make it into a movie in the late-90′s (when he was called Puff Daddy).

Anyone familiar with Pelecanos’ literature, feel free to offer and alternative or words of encouragement to check out King Suckerman. Judging by my current acquaintance with his work, I’m going to like whatever it is.