Being in it for 'The Long Fall'

Review: THE LONG FALL (Riverhead Books 2009)
Author, Walter Mosley

Have I ever mentioned that Walter Mosley is one of my very favorite authors (crime fiction and otherwise) in the whole world? So when THE LONG FALL came out, needless to say I felt compelled to try this first book in his new Leonid McGill series set in New York City, instead of the LA of Easy Rawlins and Paris Minton.

Among the many things I enjoyed about this book was meeting Leonid McGill, another one of Mosley's flawed, but likable, protagonists, haunted by terrible (as in criminal) things he's done in the past, but seeking redemption and something approaching a semi-normal life. Which is to say that, like a lot of Mosley protagonists, McGill just wants to be left alone to live his life and do his work without worrying that cops or thugs (interchangeable characters in his novels, at times) aren't breaking his door down.

That can't happen, of course. Because then there'd be no story to tell. So, it all starts when McGill is hired to find four men. He's been given their "street names"--now he has to hunt down the real people and tell his client, Ambrose Thurman, who and where they are. However, things get a bit weird when the four men start, um, being killed.

And Thurman isn't exactly who he seems to be, either.

Meanwhile, Mosley gets two other plot threads going. (He's good at that.) One involves finding A Mann (yeah, that's his name--A Mann) for a disreputable fellow from McGill's checkered past. The other involves a potentially tragic plan McGill's step-son has conceived.

Two of Mosley's favorite themes and plot devices come into play here. One is the racially-mixed--and, in this case, slightly dysfunctional--family. Katrina (interesting name choice) is McGill's Scandinavian wife. McGill is black, as Mosley's protags always are. She and McGill seem to have fallen out of love, but hang together nonetheless. Not entirely clear why. Inertia? Katrina's great cooking? (McGill brings up her cooking a lot.)

Anyway, there's a lot of stuff going on here. And a WHOLE lot of characters to keep track of. Each time I picked up the book, I'd find myself asking, "Okay, where is McGill now? Albany or New York? And who's the guy he's talking to? And what's going on?"

That brings me to the second Mosley trademark: the deadly sidekick. He makes an appearance in this book as the character Hush. Great name. Great character, too. Hush is to McGill as Mouse is to Easy Rawlins or Fearless is to Paris Minton. (You Mosley readers know what I'm saying.) He does what needs to be done, helping to resolve matters without McGill getting his hands terribly dirty in the process.

As usual, Mosley's writing is so good, I find myself almost green with envy at his word choices. For instance (totally random pick), at the beginning, McGill's in an office full of attractive young people, looking for one of the four men and makes the following observation:

"There was a chubby woman who sat in a far corner to the left, under an exit sign. She had bad skin and a utilitarian fashion sense. She was looking down, working hard. I immediately identified with her.

"I imagined sitting in that corner, hating everyone else in the room."

I love it! Tells you as much about McGill as it does about the woman. And it makes you like him, to boot. Mosley's a genius at this.

Mosley also makes each character so interesting and McGill's observations so trenchant that you can't help but read on.

There's a lot of action, tension, people dying, dangerous liaisons, ethical dilemmas, semi-requited love and an attempt on McGill's life. Meanwhile, McGill just keeps trying to maintain, keep going and figure out how to extricate himself from the situation (whatever it is) unscathed.

See, that's the thing--I never did quite understand precisely what was going on. I kept asking, "Why's the detective talking to him now? How is this rich family involved? Why does someone want to kill him? And who are all these people again?"

Since I believe strongly in only reading books I like and not slogging through ones I don't, it's really saying something about Mosley (or myself?) that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Maybe it's because Mosley sprinkled just enough bread crumbs of information throughout to allow me to (sort of) follow.

I hate to sound like I'm damning with faint praise. So, bottom line: would I recommend reading this? Yes, definitely. I like McGill, the story is intriguing (even if you need a scorecard or a flowchart to keep track of it), the writing is awesome and I think the book is a great start to another promising series.

This is so, even though when I reached the end, I felt like I'd woken up after partying hard the night before and said to myself, "I know I had a good time, but what happened?"