Shoedog sounds dope as fuck, hella people from the Wire in it. hopefully Diddy doesn't ruin it. I gotta read the book too. Richard Price is the fucking man, his old shit is good too, Blood Brothers, The Wanderers...for something to start on I'd go with Clockers, way better than the movie.
Ive never read anything by Pelecanos but as for crime fiction George V. Higgins is that dude. The Friends of Eddie Coyle, and Cogan's Trade are both the fucking shit. Cogan's trade became Killing them Softly, and that movie was super dope. My only problem with it is that Higgins's books are always set in Boston, and the movie was set in New Orleans and focused a little too much on the recession.
Higgins can write entire plots based on dialogue, and the last book he wrote is At End of Day, which to me was loosely based on Boston gangster Whitey Bulger and the FBI agents that allowed him to do his dirty work. Dude wrote nothing but dialogue in that book, and it was incredible.