“An unforgettable picture of inner-city decay and despair” ( USA Today ), the classic novel by Richard Price, the bestselling author of Lush Life and a writer on The Wire —now with a new introduction by the author. Rocco Klein, a veteran homicide detective in a city across the river from Manhattan, has lost his appetite for the thrill of the street. When a warm June night brings yet another drug murder, Rocco has no sense that the case is anything special. A twenty-year-old steps forward to confess, but a little digging reveals that he’s never been in any kind of trouble, whereas his brother runs a crew of street-corner cocaine dealers—“clockers”—in a nearby housing project. Soon Rocco is sure that Victor Dunham is innocent, sure that his brother Strike is the real killer, and suddenly Rocco’s hunger for the job is back. Driven and shrewd, Strike uses violence when he has to, but his primary concern is survival. He has been clocking for almost a year; if he could somehow move up to the ounce business, he might get off the street before it breaks him. But then Rocco Klein begins hounding him, and Strike’s life becomes a nightmare. At once an explosive murder mystery and a riveting portrait of two lives on a collision course,  Clockers  is a spectacular achievement, a harrowing but vital portrait of city life. "Triumphant . . . an astounding accomplishment." - Philadelphia Inquirer "An unforgettable picture of inner-city decay and despair." - USA Today “A huge, ambitious novel about cops, kids, and cocaine . . . Price pressure-cooks the city down to its dense, searing essentials.” - Village Voice A savvy, detail-rich story that unforgettably humanizes its dueling main characters—a world-weary teenage drug dealer and a stubborn homicide detective— Clockers is a crime epic in the vein of Victor Hugo or Fyodor Dostoevsky.   - Wall Street Journal “An outstanding work of art.” - New York Times Book Review "Price displays a near perfect ear for street language . . . He gets so deep under the skin of both the cops and the clockers that it's hard to believe he himself has never been either." - People "One hell of a book." - Washington Post Book World "Dazzling . . . An odyssey of cops, drugs, survival and power . . . a closely observed tour de force." - New York Daily News "Page after page explodes with prose as vivid as kinetic art." - Chicago Tribune “A classic . . . A powerful book.”  - Newsweek Richard Price  is the author of ten novels, including the forthcoming Lazarus Man , all of which have won universal praise for their vividly etched portrayals of urban America. He has written for television dramas, including  The Night Of, The Deuce , and  The Wire , as well as numerous screenplays, including  Sea of Love ,  Ransom , and  The Color of Money ,   directed by Martin Scorsese,   for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, the novelist Lorraine Adams.