(CNN) -- Horror-meister, Stephen King calls George Pelecanos "perhaps the greatest living American crime writer." His stories are set in Pelecanos' hometown of Washington, D.C., but this is not the side of the U.S. capitol that you see portrayed on TV with white marble monuments, lawyers and lobbyists. Pelecanos is more interested in working families struggling to get by, the racial tensions in its ethnic neighborhoods and the low-lifes on the edges. His crime-writing peers call Pelecanos the "undisputed poet" of Washington's gritty side. The best-selling and award-winning author is out this week with his 17th and latest novel, "The Cut." It's the first in a new series featuring Iraq war veteran and private investigator Spero Lucas. When he's not working for a Washington defense attorney, Lucas recovers stolen property for a 40% cut. Now, a high-profile crime boss hires Lucas to find out who's been stealing from him, and it could turn out to be Lucas' biggest payday or an untimely end. While Pelecanos made his bones in the noir tradition, there's a definite "Western" feel to "The Cut." The new novel takes place in a morally gray and often violent world. It's peppered with pitch-perfect dialogue and captures the sights, sounds and taste of Washington in rich detail. In short, Pelecanos reads like the real deal. Pelecanos knows a thing or two about capturing the authenticity of urban America with an ethnically and socially diverse cast. In addition to his success as a novelist, Pelecanos is a producer and writer for HBO's New Orleans-set, "Treme." He was previously a producer and Emmy-nominated writer on the hit series "The Wire" and the miniseries "The Pacific." Read an excerpt from "The Cut" CNN recently spoke to Pelecanos about his new novel. The following is an edited transcript. CNN: Tell me more about your new character, Spero Lucas.

Question: "Who recently released the first novel in his series featuring Iraq war veteran and private investigator Spero Lucas?"

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Answer: "George Pelecanos"

Response: yes

{ { Plot } } Tom plays pool in a deserted pool hall , pocketing two balls by lowdown means and then wakes Jerry up by shooting the 10-ball into the pocket where he is sleeping . Jerry awakes just in time to avoid the 10-ball and is carried out to the ball return , where the 10 and the 13 smash the mouse between each other . Jerry is mad and walks up through the pocket , first sees nothing , but after a few steps back to the pocket , he spots Tom perched behind it . Jerry tries to jump into another corner pocket , but Tom aims a cue ball with so much force that it roll's into the pocket , and spins back out of it and it rolls Jerry backwards to Tom , who has made a ramp with his cue stick for the mouse to slide up . Jerry stops at the top of the stick and is then blown down by Tom , who then shoots a stream of balls to make the mouse flat . The whole train rebounds back towards the cat and the balls stack up at Tom's end of the table . Tom shoots all the balls in succession with his cue , and then tries to shoot Jerry , but the mouse hangs onto the cue tip . The cat , as if he were saying '' Have it your way '' , chalks up and shoots the 8-ball using Jerry . The mouse drops off the cue tip and then is upended by the 8-ball rolling in circles , and Tom forces Jerry to jump through the ball rack as if he were a circus performer . Tom then sets it on fire to add an additional level of torment , and when Jerry accomplishes this with poise , Tom discards the flaming rack and shoots the 8-ball across the table and back .

Question: "How is Tom able to blow Jerry down the stick?"

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Answer: "Because is smaller than the mouse"

Response: no

General relativity includes a dynamical spacetime, so it is difficult to see how to identify the conserved energy and momentum. Noether's theorem allows these quantities to be determined from a Lagrangian with translation invariance, but general covariance makes translation invariance into something of a gauge symmetry. The energy and momentum derived within general relativity by Noether's presecriptions do not make a real tensor for this reason. Einstein argued that this is true for fundamental reasons, because the gravitational field could be made to vanish by a choice of coordinates. He maintained that the non-covariant energy momentum pseudotensor was in fact the best description of the energy momentum distribution in a gravitational field. This approach has been echoed by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, and others, and has become standard. The use of non-covariant objects like pseudotensors was heavily criticized in 1917 by Erwin Schrodinger and others.

Question: "Did Landau use dynamical spacetime in his theory, if not, what?"

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Answer: "No, it uses translation invariance"

Response: no

Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States. Millions of men and women readied themselves for work. Some made their way to the Twin Towers, the signature structures of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. Others went to Arlington, Virginia, to the Pentagon. Across the Potomac River, the United States Congress was back in session. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, people began to line up for a White House tour. In Sarasota, Florida, President George W. Bush went for an early morning run. For those heading to an airport, weather conditions could not have been better for a safe and pleasant journey. Among the travelers were Mohamed Atta and Abdul Aziz al Omari, who arrived at the airport in Portland, Maine. Boston: American 11 and United 175. Atta and Omari boarded a 6:00 A.M. flight from Portland to Boston's Logan International Airport. When he checked in for his flight to Boston, Atta was selected by a computerized prescreening system known as CAPPS (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System), created to identify passengers who should be subject to special security measures. Under security rules in place at the time, the only consequence of Atta's selection by CAPPS was that his checked bags were held off the plane until it was confirmed that he had boarded the aircraft. This did not hinder Atta's plans. Atta and Omari arrived in Boston at 6:45. Seven minutes later, Atta apparently took a call from Marwan al Shehhi, a longtime colleague who was at another terminal at Logan Airport. They spoke for three minutes. It would be their final conversation.

Question: "With who and for how long was Mohamed Atta's last phone call?"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes

Answer: "Shehhi, 3 minutes"

Response:
yes