Known to Evil: A Leonid McGill Mystery
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This is my fourth Walter Mosley book and my third one with Leonid McGill as the protagonist. I believe that’s the full set of Leonid McGill mysteries for the time being. I really like Mosley’s writing. It’s rich and colorful and brings to mind a vivid virtual reality for me. Leonid McGill is a terrific character. I don’t always like detective stories, but I like these a lot.
McGill is a boxer turned mob fixer turned private investigator. He is in a loveless marriage that he’s committed to and has three children. Well, only one is actually his. His father was a staunch communist who left home when McGill was 12 and whose leaving was the cause of his mother’s death. One of his sons is a con-man and the other doesn’t speak to him. McGill is in love with a woman who he pushed away and is now dating another man, which is killing McGill. Yeah, that rich a story.
Like most detective story writers, Mosley does overuse a crutch. Sometimes, when McGill gets in a jam or the story needs to take a sharp turn, the author relies on the appropriate person being fabricated out of McGill’s questionable background. If the person needs high political office to work in the story, needs special skills or needs to have access to something that McGill must have to resolve a problem or figure something out, it conveniently materializes through a relationship he had prior to the beginning of the series – when he wasn’t such a good guy. Sometimes, this comes of as a little too convenient, if you know what I mean.
As I’ve mentioned in my other reviews about these book, Mosley is a thesaurus of adjectives describing the color of his characters’ skin, especially if they are black. Oops, they are never black, they’re green olives in the shadow of a tree on a moonlit night. You get the idea.
All that said, the book is very enjoyable. I didn’t read the three books in order and like any good writer, Mosley makes that work. Still, reading them in order makes the story flow a little easier. This is the second book.
- Started reading:
- 11th July 2011
- Finished reading:
- 13th July 2011