Known to Evil

Starred review from January 25, 2010
Bestseller Mosley scores a clean knockout in his excellent second mystery featuring New York City PI Leonid McGill (after 2009’s The Long Fall
). Still striving to atone for some of the lives he’s ruined, the 54-year-old McGill laments that there are “no straight lines in the life or labors of the private detective.” Instead, crises crowd him at every turn. A powerful, shadowy city hall official wants McGill to locate and protect a young woman named Tara Lear, a task complicated by a murder. Older son Dimitri is involved with a Russian hooker whose pimp doesn’t want to let her go. Younger son Twill, trying to help his brother, risks violating parole restrictions. Relations with wife Katrina and lover Aura Ullman, “with her Aryan eyes and Ethiopian skin,” are in flux. The ex-boxer has an eclectic group in his corner, including computer whiz Tiny “Bug” Bateman, but McGill is the one taking the blows and meting out punishment in this contemporary noir gem. Author tour.

March 1, 2010
It would be easybut ill advisedto overlook Leonid McGill, a short, stocky, bald, middle-aged black man with a worried expression. At any given New York minute, though, McGill just might explode in your face or end up dead at your feet. He and his beautiful Scandinavian wife of 23 years have three children and an "arrangement"; he's trained himself to appreciate that one of the kids is actually his own. Still trying to shake off his past ties to crime, McGill works as a PI, mainly on the right side of the law. Fingered by an NYC power broker to investigate a woman, he arrives at her apartment to find it overrun by cops. Someone there has been shot and her assailant stabbed to death. It's enough to test even this dark knight's commitment to righting wrongs. VERDICT With his second McGill outing (after "The Long Fall"), the neo-noir master proves that this new series has legs; this title will appeal to anybody who enjoys George Pelecanos's take on contemporary DC as well as longtime Easy Rawlins fans. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 11/1/09.]Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2010
Leonid McGill, Mosleys newest hero (The Long Fall, 2009), is haunted by the bad things he used to do to peopleor so he keeps telling us. At first, the plot seems to support that claim: as McGill works his case, tracking a young woman for a powerful fixer, he is also consumed with helping a former victim, rescuing his sons girlfriend from her pimp, and remaining respectful in his loveless marriage. But those plotlines are decoys because the supporting characters arent fully developed. Each exists to demonstrate something about McGillhis remorse, violence, loyaltyand then is quickly whisked offstage. Mosley has written some classic crime novels, and he has a devoted following, but the strikingly different setting of this series doesnt hide a glaring flaw: from start to finish, McGill and his supporting cast dont change. This is a very interior, solipsistic crime novel, and McGills first-person narration may feel oppressive to some readers. Others may wonder how such a self-centered sleuth could possibly become a good judge of other peoples characters. In marked contrast to Mosleys threadbare L.A. settings, McGills world is lush and wealthy. But its also cartoonish in its absolutes: McGill knows no fear but constructs spy-worthy escape hatches. He has an extensive network of criminals and stone-cold killers. Hes short and ugly, but women throw themselves at him. All writing requires some degree of world-building, but the world Mosley has built here shows the marks of its invention.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)