false It feels familiar -- at times I'd be forgiven for forgetting that this isn't an Easy Rawlins mystery -- but I'm enjoying it just the same. 0 2009-05-31T00:04:02-07:00 823960 165 2009-05-31T00:04:02-07:00 4 1 false false Sun Jun 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 02 14:51:16 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 15:02:20 -0700 2009
Thankfully, that ended up not to be the case. There are similarities, sure. Leonid has a bad relationship with the cops, has a son on the verge of becoming a man whom he worries deeply about, and he's even got a stone cold killer as a friend. By the end of The Long Fall, however, I had forgotten the reminders of characters and stories earlier in Mosley's career and accepted this new world on it's own merits.

McGill lives in a world that appears, at least on the surface, to be rapidly changing around him. Race in America has shrouded itself in new clothes. Technology provides him tools that make his job both easier and much harder. He tries desperately to see the big picture, or at least enough to prevent himself from doing something stupid that he can't come back from yet stupid lurks for him around every corner. He's been dirty all his life and only now, way too late in the game, is he trying to do enough right to not be so damn wrong all the time.

It's an enjoyable, fast read and a fine introduction to what will become a series of interesting mysteries starring the black man with a Russian first name defiantly old school in a modern world. I should also note that spending time with Leonid McGill is what sent me in search of Elmore Leonard's kind of grit right after with Road Dogs. I've been doing a lot of alternating between the two crime fiction authors a lot this Summer and I don't really seeing that stopping as we move on into the Fall.]]>