Starred review from March 30, 2015
Leonid McGill slogs his way through a morass of personal and professional problems in Mosley's outstanding fifth mystery featuring the New York City PI (after 2012's All I Did Was Shoot My Man). People giving him trouble include a modern-day Fagin, who's entangled with McGill's son Twill in some criminal enterprises; the ex-fiancé of a woman McGill is involved with; and a client he rejected. Women have always complicated McGill's life and continue to do so: his emotionally fragile wife, Katrina, is in a sanatorium after a failed suicide attempt; his sometime lover, Aura Ullman, is keeping her distance; and he's attracted to the beautiful Marella Herzog, whom he meets on the train from Philadelphia to New York. McGill deals with his professional problems with a combination of brute force and wiliness, while the women in his life tie him in emotional knots. The return of his father, Tolstoy McGill, the left-wing revolutionary who abandoned his family years ago, roils McGill even more than the women. Mosley's sharp ear for dialogue and talent for sketching memorable characters are much in evidence in this installment, further deepening his complex lead. Agent: Gloria Loomis, Watkins/Loomis Agency.
Starred review from May 1, 2015
Some things never change for Leonid McGill (All I Did Was Shoot My Man, 2012), like the orbiting relationships with his suicidal wife and his off-again soul-mate girlfriend, and his inevitable entanglement in a mess of someone else's making. When down-on-his-luck Hiram Stent attempts to hire Leonid to find a distant cousin so that he can collect the astronomical reward offered for her recovery, Leonid foresees a bad ending and sends him away. But that night, burglars break into Leonid's office and kill a security guard, and Hiram is murdered in a suspicious mugging. Leonid resolves to deliver justice for the guard and Hiram. But he has plenty of distractions: his son and fellow PI, Twill, has gone deep undercover trying to bust a murderous modern-day Fagin; Leonid has become enraptured with a mysterious new temptress; and his long-lost father's reappearance forces him to confront the legacy of his childhood. This fifth entry in the series brings forth a truckload of resolutions and fresh starts in Leonid's personal story, delivered with Mosley's celebrated poetic style and genius for wrapping fascinating, quirky characters in complex cons. While Mosley is best known for his Easy Rawlins novels, set in the post-WWII and later twentieth-century era, this gritty, present-day series deserves serious attention from all fans of mainstream hard-boiled detective fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)
December 1, 2014
Mosley offers his first Leonid McGill mystery since 2012's Edgar nominee All I Did Was Shoot My Man. Even as he steps back from girlfriend Aura Ullman following his wife's suicide attempt and hospitalization, Leonid declines to help unemployed office manager Hiram Stent, who's looking for a missing cousin set to inherit millions. But the case is on when Leonid's office is ransacked and Hiram is found dead.
Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 15, 2015
In his fifth Leonid McGill novel (after All I Did Was Shoot My Man), Mosley immerses McGill, and his readers, in the underbelly world of criminals, prostitutes, parolees, and wealthy women. Add to this mix both Hiram Stent, a client who's searching for his cousin and millions of inheritance dollars, and Twill, McGill's son, who's trying to help an amateur thief and his girlfriend. Being an ex-boxer and hard drinker, McGill imagines he can balance these investigations with his tumultuous personal life--until hit men unexpectedly break into his office and murder his client. VERDICT Mosley writes chaotic and convoluted stories but resolves them in creative and imaginative ways. His colorful character descriptions ("her voice was...in the register of gold") invite readers to enter Mosley's world and find delight amid destruction ("her beauty denied her 45 years"). [See Prepub Alert, 11/17/14.]--Jerry P. Miller. Cambridge, MA
Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
June 29, 2015
Like the four Leonid McGill novels that have preceded it, this one has Mosley’s empathic and overworked New York private eye solving problems both professional and personal. His work includes the search for an heiress and assisting a woman who’s being stalked by her former lover. Meanwhile, his long-estranged father, Tolstoy McGill, suddenly reappears, while Leonid’s wife, Katrina, is in a sanatorium suffering from suicidal depression, and his mentor, Gordo, a boxing trainer, has talked him into “testing” a much-younger protégé who doesn’t like to lose. Both the novel’s narrator, Leonid, and reader, Onayemi (whose stage credits include War Horse), stay cool and mellow in the midst of chaos. The actor effortlessly and effectively portrays the ladies in Leonid’s life, from his sexy client to his soft-spoken wife to his young and infatuated office assistant. As for the elderly members of the cast, Onayemi supplies Leonid’s surrogate father, Gordo, with a guttural, gruff voice, while birth father Tolstoy speaks in a hoarse whisper that carries a hint of amusement and philosophical contentment. A Doubleday hardcover.