A brand-new mystery series from one of the countrys best-known, best-loved writers: a new character, a new city, a new era. A new Walter Mosley...
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Jul 17, 2011
Kemper
rated it: 
You think you got problems? Just be glad you’re not Leonid McGill. Poor McGill is a private detective who used to specialize in blackmail and framing people to let others off the hook, but now he’s trying to turn over a new leaf and only take legitimate jobs. Staying on the straight and narrow isn’t easy. What should have been a simple case of finding four men takes a nasty turn when they start turning up dead. Leonid was used to find the guys so they could be murdered, and he looks to be n
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Mar 30, 2009
Ed
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Walter Mosley's new P.I. series debuts with this title set in New York City in 2008. Leonid McGill is an ex-boxer with a family who has decided to turn over a new leaf. He's done with his rough-and-tumble past. Great minor characters, including "Hush" who reminds me of Mouse. Enjoyed the dream sequences and back story woven into the narrative. This series will get better in the subsequent titles.
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Apr 06, 2009
Brenda
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Mosley is that rare author who can be so incredibly subtle when he's right up in your face. I love his new character, Leonid (so named by a rabidly communist father), who is physically and mentally tough but oh so tender when it comes to his loved ones. I like that he has a disfunctional marriage but a functional love life. Lots of dichotemies in this fast-moving story.
Mar 31, 2009
Becky
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Each time I read a Walter Mosley book--which isn't very often--I wonder to myself why I don't read every Walter Mosley book. Each one I've read is a beautiful, violent gem. In simple, unflinching, often poetic language Mosely writes hard-boiled detective fiction like no one writing today.
The Long Fall introduces a new character, Leonid McGill, an African American private investigator in his fifties. For those who wonder how a black man comes by such a name, McGill--or LT, as most More...
The Long Fall introduces a new character, Leonid McGill, an African American private investigator in his fifties. For those who wonder how a black man comes by such a name, McGill--or LT, as most More...
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Mar 24, 2009
Sara
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Walter Mosley’s The Long Fall is a mystery novel set in New York. The main character and narrator, Leonid, is perfection. A private investigator trying to balance what he believes is right and what is necessary to pay his rent and provide for his family. When he ignores his gut and takes the wrong case; inadvertently assisting in murder, he finds himself fighting for his life. Which is only the beginning of his problems, as his youngest son is also plotting a murder. There is a lot of back
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Feb 20, 2011
Dylan
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Walter Mosley has been one of my favorite writers for a while now. I’ve only read one of his science-fiction novels (The Wave, good read), but I’ve read a goodly portion of his mysteries. His stories are always uniquely his, even the ones that take place in a cliche-raddled genre like Detective Fiction.
And this is especially true in The Long Fall, the first in a series of books about Leonid McGill. McGill is a New York based private eye and an ex-boxer, so he’s already rife with qua More...
And this is especially true in The Long Fall, the first in a series of books about Leonid McGill. McGill is a New York based private eye and an ex-boxer, so he’s already rife with qua More...
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Oct 22, 2010
Lars
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Wow. Mosley takes what he's expected to do—write a hard-boiled detective novel—and adds in some of what he's learned doing what he is not expected to do (in books like 'Blue Light,' or more recently, 'The Man in the Basement') to inaugurate a smashing new series.
Mosley moves the setting from Los Angeles in the past to Manhattan in the present day. No more 'Easy' or 'Fearless,' or even 'Socrates,' this guy is named Leonid, son of Tolstoy, brother to Nikita. His 'slave name,' as he More...
Mosley moves the setting from Los Angeles in the past to Manhattan in the present day. No more 'Easy' or 'Fearless,' or even 'Socrates,' this guy is named Leonid, son of Tolstoy, brother to Nikita. His 'slave name,' as he More...
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Aug 12, 2010
Anna
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Leonid McGill is a new character created by Walter Mosley. He’s a private detective who in his prior life did some terrible things for his criminal clients such as set up innocent men. “In the years before, I had no problem bringing people down, even framing them with false evidence if that’s what the client paid for. I didn’t mind sending an innocent man, or woman, to prison because I didn’t believe in innocence – virtue didn’t pay the bills.” But he has decided to turn over a new leaf. Unfortu
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Jul 28, 2010
Genie
rated it:
Walter Mosley is introducing readers to bad-guy-turned-good, Leonid McGill. He has spent his entire adult life working jobs for the mob as well as dishonest businessmen.
Life has not been easy. Abandoned by his father when he was twelve years old, his mother died within the next year. The rest of his childhood was spent in foster care and then on the streets. Trained to be a boxer, these fighting skills are often put to good use.
Plagued by past deeds and victims, one d More...
Life has not been easy. Abandoned by his father when he was twelve years old, his mother died within the next year. The rest of his childhood was spent in foster care and then on the streets. Trained to be a boxer, these fighting skills are often put to good use.
Plagued by past deeds and victims, one d More...
Jun 23, 2010
Diane
rated it: 
One of the major joys of reading Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins books is dropping oneself into the environment of the story, not just the place, but the people who inhabit the story's space. The first book of the new series, The Long Fall, is set in today's New York City, but most of the action takes place inside office buildings, apartments, and non-descript clubs. There is no feel for the streets of this huge city. The minor characters, with a couple of exceptions, aren't individualistic enough
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May 16, 2010
Jim
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When Walter Mosley tells a story, you can hear the voice of the first person narrator as you read. It’s not all that different from hearing a live storyteller by a fireside. In this engaging hard-boiled noir story, Mosley introduces a new hero, Leonid McGill. Leonid is a reformed freelance criminal operative who is trying to lead a more aboveboard and moral life -- no more killing, and if possible, no more working for people who want others killed. Like Mosley’s most famous protagonist, Easy Rol
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Nov 04, 2009
Bill
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I couldn't finish this book. Walter Mosley usually serves up welcome cultural insights with his well done detective/crime stories. I couldn't wait to read this one (meaning I bought the hardcover). I choked through about half before just giving up.
There are no insights in this book. There are lots of hard-boiled cliches. The hero, Leonid McGill has a mixed up sort of family life that reminds me of Easy Rawlins or Dave Robicheaux. He is an ex-boxer tough but oh-so-tender (maybe he wen More...
There are no insights in this book. There are lots of hard-boiled cliches. The hero, Leonid McGill has a mixed up sort of family life that reminds me of Easy Rawlins or Dave Robicheaux. He is an ex-boxer tough but oh-so-tender (maybe he wen More...
May 11, 2009
Tony
rated it:
Mosley, Walter. THE LONG FALL. (2009). ****. Take Easy Rawlins, put him into New York, Change his name to Leonid McGill, and give him a new menacing sidekick named Hush, and you have the beginning of a new series by Mosley. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good mystery, but a bit formulaic – especially in light of Mosley’s previous novels. It reads more like the usual once-a-year Robert Parker novel than the classic Mosley of Rawlinis fame. That’s not all bad, since Mosley was getting to be a b
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Dec 18, 2011
Kimberly
rated it:
I've been a Walter Mosley fan for some time, but unfortunately, for me, this new PI, Leonid McGill, I wasn't feeling. The storyline was pretty much all over the place, and there were times when I wasn't exactly sure which character was speaking, only to go back and have to re-read the conversations to make sure I was following. I just didn't care for this book. It did read like a movie, but a movie that was boring. And a bit too much detail that I didn't find necessary to state. It was almos
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Feb 07, 2012
Tim
rated it:
There are things about the Long Fall that I am not particularly fond of, in part because I was so fond of Easy Rawlins. It's setting in New York is fairly generic, its missing the feel of LA neighborhoods and a particular time. Only the technology makes you realize it is today. While the surrounding characters are interesting, too many of them seem like deus ex machina of a sort - the computer expert, the assassain, the political and mob bosses, the helper, the love interest, all there to car
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Apr 20, 2009
Steve
rated it:
A new character for Mosley, Leonid McGill. Since this book is set in the present, it won't echo the Easy Rawlins stories in attempting to portray a whole era. The McGill character is interesting in a lot of ways, even if the story wasn't all that gripping, McGill's relationships to New York, to his family were what were interesting. Two things put me off in the book -- several times McGilll has dreams that echo what is going on around him, and foreshadow things. That may be realistic, but I don'
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Sep 23, 2010
Elizabeth
rated it:
I like Walter Mosley’s writing. I’m just not much into the murder-mystery sort of genre, at least I don’t think I am, but maybe I haven’t given it much of a chance (I like “Law and Order” and “The Closer”). He’s a good story no matter what and I love a prolific writer who isn’t dead because you get to look forward to what comes next.
That said, his writing doesn’t fill anything buy my entertainment tank. He’s a good storyteller, but I can walk away in the middle of a chapter and no More...
That said, his writing doesn’t fill anything buy my entertainment tank. He’s a good storyteller, but I can walk away in the middle of a chapter and no More...
Nov 08, 2009
Ines
rated it: 
I don't know what to say about this book, other than to say, it is what it is. It's my first Walter Mosley book, and, probably my last.
The author tells you a story, just the way it is. No suspense, no thrill. I wasn't compelled, I didn't want to find out what happened next, sometimes I didn't even want to turn the page. Worst of all, I couldn't relate to the main character, even come close to liking him, or want to find out what his fate would be. I was always the outsider, but I wa More...
The author tells you a story, just the way it is. No suspense, no thrill. I wasn't compelled, I didn't want to find out what happened next, sometimes I didn't even want to turn the page. Worst of all, I couldn't relate to the main character, even come close to liking him, or want to find out what his fate would be. I was always the outsider, but I wa More...
Jul 25, 2009
Debbi
rated it:
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 More...
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 More...
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May 18, 2011
Ellery
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Walter Mosley is one of my favorite authors and this book does not dosappoint.
I will always wish Walter Mosley had stayed in Los Angeles. But I will always read him no matter where he goes. It took me a while to catch on to the Easy Rawlins series. Mosley had set out to do nothing less than teach me about the African American community of Los Angeles. A community I grew up in.
From the point of view of the people who really live the history, the day to day folks whose live More...
I will always wish Walter Mosley had stayed in Los Angeles. But I will always read him no matter where he goes. It took me a while to catch on to the Easy Rawlins series. Mosley had set out to do nothing less than teach me about the African American community of Los Angeles. A community I grew up in.
From the point of view of the people who really live the history, the day to day folks whose live More...
Feb 19, 2010
Jesse
rated it:
Decent Chandleresque mystery. Mosley killed off Easy Rawlins after 10 books, I think (he's not dead dead, like Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls, so he could be resurrected if needed) and starts a new series here with a red-diaper-baby PI who's gone straight, sort of. A lot of Big Sleep allusions, or at least nods, and the usual hard-guy sidekick (a tired trope for whom we have to blame Robert B. Parker, I think, though now it seems to be THE shtick in every mystery I read; our more-sensitive
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Nov 01, 2009
Will
rated it:
Mosley introduces here PI Leonid McGill, a short, broad, and boxer-tough black fifty-something, who, after a back-story crisis, is trying to lighten the shade of his moral ambiguity, and is easy to root for. He has a few laughs tossing out character names like Norman Fell and Thom Watson. There are plenty of characters here, so be prepared to keep a scorecard. Mosley has moved from mid-twentieth-century LA to twenty-first-century New York City, but his work retains the atmosphere one expects. T
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Feb 02, 2012
Katherine
rated it:
*Really, I'd give it 3.5 stars.
"I was like a man, shovel in hand, finding himself standing in a freshly dug grave but with no memory of having dug it. I stayed there because at least if you've hit bottom you had no farther to fall" (130).
"The plan followed nature, which was always the best way to go. Why blast a path down a mountain when erosion has already excavated the best route?" (149).
"'Leonid McGill for Bryant Hull,' I shouted. I always shout when More...
"I was like a man, shovel in hand, finding himself standing in a freshly dug grave but with no memory of having dug it. I stayed there because at least if you've hit bottom you had no farther to fall" (130).
"The plan followed nature, which was always the best way to go. Why blast a path down a mountain when erosion has already excavated the best route?" (149).
"'Leonid McGill for Bryant Hull,' I shouted. I always shout when More...
Jun 09, 2011
Brian
rated it:
The Long Fall felt a little too familiar. While there was clearly an attempt to create a new character, it just felt like Easy Rawlins had been picked up, dusted off, and changed just enough so that the casual reader wouldn't recognize him. That's not to say that the characters are the same; they're not. But the overall effect of the book was similar enough to the Easy Rawlins books that it was hard not to make comparisons. And unfortunately, The Long Fall just wasn't as gripping as the best
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Jul 08, 2009
Ero
rated it:
Masterful hard-boiled noir, including perfect implementations of all the standard themes & motifs (the troublesome cop double, the rich-but-corrupt family in their mansion, the unstoppable muscle, the deadly underworld mastermind, the slick gangster, the dead alternate private eye, various femme fatales).
Mosley's real trick though is using these standard components to explore complex moral issues, sifting through the variety of ways our selves and our lives are constructed from diff More...
Mosley's real trick though is using these standard components to explore complex moral issues, sifting through the variety of ways our selves and our lives are constructed from diff More...
Jun 01, 2009
Bookmarks Magazine
rated it:
Perhaps inevitably, every reviewer attempted to assess how Leonid McGill compares to Mosley's beloved (but now retired) protagonist Easy Rawlins. In general, critics were pleased, if a little stunned, by the two characters' stark differences. Yet every reviewer was satisfied with Mosley's masterful abilities to construct an intriguing mystery around any kind of character. A few reviewers complained that the plot and the character development of The Long Fall were somewhat convoluted. However, as
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Jul 22, 2011
Kathleen
rated it:
Great to have a new series from Mosley. Our detective this time around is Leonid McGill, a man trying to turn his life around, but that is proving difficult. LT has many things in common with the great Easy Rawlins; he's an unlikely family man with a fierce loyalty to his children with complex relationships with the women in his life and a motley band of friends. The story was typical mystery fare, maybe a bit more tired than some of Mosley's past books. But the thing that always brings me back
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Jul 12, 2010
CarolineFromConcord
rated it:
I liked most of Mosley's Fearless Jones and Calif-based, decade-sequenced Easy Rawlins mysteries. Couldn't get into his sci-fi. Now he is living in NYC and has a new protagonist, Leonid McGill, based in NYC. Looks like it will also be a good series. I like his discussions of race and his plots. Leonid has led a life of crime but is trying hard to turn over a new leaf, sort of--using crime to right some wrongs. Am not really crazy about the moral ambiguity, and some characters are pretty implaus
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Jan 08, 2012
dtjunkie
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Though this book is the first in a series I felt like I had jumped into the 6th book of an existing series. The protagonist continuously makes references to things that happened in the past in a way that made me feel like I should remember them. As opposed to the interesting thought experiments of Mosley's The Man in My Basement or The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray, this novel is a run of the mill hard-boiled detective story filled with deus ex machina cliches like the super assassin Hush and the
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Apr 17, 2009
D.K.
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The Long Fall by Walter Mosley introduces a new PI named Leonid McGill. A little background on McGill: He is African-American, average height, a boxer in a previous life, the son of a communist, married to a woman who had children by other men during their marriage and used to take on unscrupulous jobs if paid the right price. With all that said, McGill is trying to make up for his past by taking jobs that won’t ruin the lives of others. But sometimes getting out of the life is hard to do.
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