New York private eye Leonid McGill is asked by a well-connected politico to look into the whereabouts of a young beauty, unleashing a murderous chain of events in Walter Mosley's Known to Evil.
This is the second McGill mystery in a new series Mosley began recently. Mosley's Easy Rawlins books, which takes a sort-of detective through life in L.A. from post World War II to post Watts riots and beyond, is one of my favorite contemporary mystery series and I believe will be remembered as one of the greats of the late 20th century. I think Mosley is trying to do the same for New York, in a contemporary setting, with milder results.
McGill is a former very crooked P.I. who is somewhat bent back straight, with all the complications that ensue from that situation. His home life, with an unfaithful wife and three kids with uncertain paternity, also weighs on his mind. These main themes, and several other subplots, make for an overly dense narrative with a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion.
But a moderately successful Mosley novel is always above the average read, so I would recommend it for fans.
I listened to a very good audio book version of this, read by Mirron Willis, on loan from the Morrison-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana.
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