All I Did Was Shoot My Man

Leonid McGill #4

by Walter Mosley

An electric new novel starring PI Leonid McGill from the inimitable Walter Mosley, creator of the Easy Rawlins series.Seven years ago Zella Grisham was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder and grand theft. After two years of fruitless negotiations Zella was sentenced to 25 years in prison, mainly because she refused to give up her accomplices in a $6.8 million heist from Rutgers Assurance Corp. But Zella had played no part in that heist. PI Leonid McGill had planted the evidence. All Zella had done was shoot her man, her cheating husband Harry Tangelo, when she'd caught him in bed with her best friend. That was a long time ago, and McGill has regrets. So he hires a hotshot attorney to set her free. Zella's big regret is that she tried to kill Tangelo. McGill agrees to track him down, but the trail leads back to Rutgers Assurance, and the man who paid McGill to plant the evidence is found dead. As Zella is hounded and an attempt is made on McGill's life, the detective realises the case is more complicated than he had ever imagined - but can he live long enough to sort it out?

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Noir, African American, New York

334 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 24, 2012

About the author

Walter Mosley (b. 1952) is the author of the bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins, as well as numerous other works, from literary fiction and science fiction to a young adult novel and political monographs. His short fiction has been widely published, and his nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and the Nation, among other publications. Mosley is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Grammy, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[ij · Rating 4 out of 5]

All I Did Was Shoot My Man is a mystery written by Walter Mosley. Mosley is an African-American author best known for his Easy Rawlins series. He has published over sixty books in various genres. Many of his books are best sellers. Also, three of his books were made into movies. He is currently working as executive producer of FX Networks Snowfall drama series.

This book is part of his Leonid McGill mystery series. McGill is a African-American PI who lives and works in New York city. He is trying to reform his life from a criminal past where he helped frame people to get the real criminal off. In this story McGill has helped get Zella Grisham out of prison. He was the person that framed Zella in the first place. Zella is the person who shot her man and McGill planted evidence that linked her to a crime she was not involved in. It was thought that she would not have been jailed for shooting her boyfriend because of diminished capacity. But the evidence that McGill planted was from a robbery in which a guard was killed. This gave her no sympathy from the judge.

Someone does not want Zella out of prison and people who were involved in the robbery start to be killed. McGill gets Zella a job and a place to stay. She doesn't know why he is helping her, but he tells her he is working for her lawyer who believes she is innocent in regards to the robbery. Later, seeing people being killed he hides Zella and tries to find out who is trying to kill him and others. They had zeroed in on him because he was the one that picked up Zella from the bus station after she was released from prison.

McGill has a dysfunctional family with his wife Katina and sons Dmitri and Twilliam (Twill), and daughter Shelly. One can’t really fault the children, all adults, because their parents are so flawed. Both McGill and his wife are unfaithful to each other. In fact, Twill and Shelly are not McGills biological children even though they were born during the marriage. He knows this but accepts them as his own.

The story deals with family dynamics and McGill’s success in solving mysteries. He has asked his son Twill to work for him. Twill’s friend Mardi is McGills receptionist in his office. After, paid assassins invade his house trying to kill him and his family they come together to protect themselves and their home. Katrina is not faring well with this situation.

Twill is also helping McGil on another case and helps to resolve the issues and shows promise in working as a PI. Mardi also shows a keen sense for analyzing cases.

The company that was initially robbed is still trying who stole fifty-eight million from them. They think Zella stole the money and followed McGill to get to her. Police are involved and McGill manages to get the real criminal to show his hand.

Lots of twists and turns. Mosley always gives vivid descriptions of people and places. I think he goes a little overboard in his descriptions of people. I don’t need to know that someone has a mole on their left %$.

I recommend this book for mystery readers.

[Tim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Walter Mosely has written some good novels. Unfortunately, this is not one of them. 1 of 10 stars!

[Richard Derus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In the latest and most surprising novel in the bestselling Leonid McGill series, Leonid finds himself caught between his sins of the past and an all-too-vivid present.

Seven years ago, Zella Grisham came home to find her man, Harry Tangelo, in bed with her friend. The weekend before, $6.8 million had been stolen from Rutgers Assurance Corp., whose offices are across the street from where Zella worked. Zella didn't remember shooting Harry, but she didn't deny it either. The district attorney was inclined to call it temporary insanity-until the police found $80,000 from the Rutgers heist hidden in her storage space.

For reasons of his own, Leonid McGill is convinced of Zella's innocence. But as he begins his investigation, his life begins to unravel. His wife is drinking more than she should. His oldest son has dropped out of college and moved in with an ex-prostitute. His youngest son is working for him and trying to stay within the law. And his father, whom he thought was long dead, has turned up under an alias.

A gripping story of murder, greed, and retribution, All I Did Was Shoot My Man is also the poignant tale of one man's attempt to stay connected to his family.

My Review: Horrible person that I am, I won this book in a LibraryThing giveaway in DECEMBER 2011 and somehow never posted a review.

Probably all for the best, since I thought this book was a hot mess. Too much going on, too little attention paid to too many variables, and as a series entry it fell on its keister. The scatteredness means that the sense of building up to something that a series should have is missing.

Leonid runs around and brings justice where it's overdue. In the process we meet every single person, criminal or ex-criminal, in Manhattan. Yay, and boo. Why I should know about some of these wacky ex-crims is beyond me, and because Mosley is chopping and changing the narrative so much, it's just too much for my two-volt nervous system to absorb and call it "pleasure reading."

There's a line in here about success making Leonid crave a Coney Island...chili cheese dog with onions...and that, for me, sums the book up: Filling processed food-like substance for the brain, but plan on sleepin' alone because the aftereffects are noisome.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5 Stars*
A nifty little title. I like it. It refers to NY private detective Leonid McGill's new "client(?)" Zella Grisham, who recently served 8 years for not only shooting her boyfriend, but for being involved in a major robbery. As usual, Leonid is feeling the need to atone for past sins. Leonid is the one that planted the false evidence that implicated Zella in the heist. Now he means to get to the bottom of who was really behind it.

*Yawn*

The only thing cool about the plot is the title. One of the big issues here is that not only is that plot terribly boring, but Mosley also stacks too many other equally uninteresting mysteries, essentially weakening the effect of all of them. This seems to be a trademark in this series. It got to a point where I stopped caring about all the little issues that Leonid had to deal with. As a matter of fact it seemed like Mosley didn't really care that much either. It felt as if he just really enjoys writing these characters and, because he has the reputation of being a mysteries writer, felt as if he needed to come up with some thin mysteries to frame his characters around. The character that jump starts the whole story, Zella, is barely even shows up in the book! I've been noticing this trend of boring plots a lot in many detective stories and I'm getting a little tired of it. Character is very important, but there needs to be something else going on to keep me reading about the same people every book, and this series is getting a bit repetitive. This low rating might be a product of just getting tired of reading forgettable crime fiction.

That might be why I enjoy noir fiction over detective crime. The characters are many times more flawed and more engaging, and the plots and concepts are a lot more fresh and urgent. But don't get me wrong, I'm still a big fan of Mosley, but after catching up with this series after I read the next book, I'll focus more on his standalone work. I would've given this book a straight two stars but I wanted to give it a little extra for Mosley's usual good writing.

[Jonathan K (Max Outlier) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating 3.5

Weaving your way from the last installment of a detective series to earlier ones, most assume they'll be similar if not identical where plot, pacing and characters are concerned. Mosley is prolific where detective stories go, and these earlier McGill stories are well paced but more boiler plate.

Leonid Trotter McGill, aka L.T. is hired by an attorney to find evidence that Zella Grisham was framed for the indictment of the $58M heist of Rutgers Assurance. And while she did murder Harry Tangelo days before the robbery for cheating on him with her girlfriend, she had no part in the heist.

As typical of frames, $50K was planted in Zella's storage shed but McGill is smarter than the average bear due to his crew of tech wizards, underworld types and insiders. Skilled at impersonating people, his trip down memory lane is filled with deception, aliases, high level cheaters and countless other types. But this is the world of LT where all bets are off.

Added to his professional challenges is the implosion of his wife Katrina, who drowns her sorrows in alcohol. Their mutual love died ages ago and like most soured marriages, adultery blossomed. LT has three children of which, Dmitri is the only one blood related. The eldest of three, he falls for a Belarusian prostitute turned college student who Katrina has issues with. I found the family drama a bit soapy, but the plot picks up momentum at the halfway point and for that I'm truly grateful.

Somewhat predictable, the saving grace is use of short chapters, concise dialog and plot points that keep the reader engaged. Were I not a fan of Mosley, I might have tossed it in the DNF pile, but wanting to work my way through the series, I decided against it. As stated with the previous installment, if you enjoy detective series and stylized narrative, you'll enjoy this one as well as the others.

[Amos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid fourth Leonid McGill tale from the incomparable Walter Mosley. LOTS of spinning plates in this one...but they all came together nicely in the end. I think.

4 Shooting Stars

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another solid entry in Walter Mosley's new PI series. I got a little lost in the plot toward the end, but that may be because I had to stop in the middle for a paid reading asignment. I like the way WM handles the back story, and how he intersperses the philosophical bits in the narrative.

[TK421 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve wanted to read something from Walter Mosley for a while now. I hear good things about his hardboiled mysteries—a modern African American twist on traditional Noir—and these days we’re putting all sorts of twists on traditional Noir, so why not try another flavor, right? That’s why I was really excited to get a copy of his most recent novel. It’s called All I Did Was Shoot My Man, and it’s the fourth in the Leonid McGill series.

Overall All I Did Was Shoot My Man was a great book. The characters were deep and interesting, the thematic elements were full and well formed, and the mystery was riveting. Hell, I didn’t even work out who the bad guy was before the ending, and that’s a rarity for me. But most of all I was impressed by Mosley’s ability to turn a phrase and his power with imagery, which are a must when you’re writing hardboiled or noir. The copy I received was an Advanced Review Copy (ARC), and as such there was some polishing left to do on the manuscript. It was all easily overlooked, though, considering the strength of the story as a whole (and I’m sure any minor imperfections will be corrected before final publication).

But you guys are wanting a plot summary, aren’t you? Well, ask and you shall receive!

McGill is a private detective in New York City, but prior to that he was a bad guy. Specifically, he was a fixer. Whenever the really bad guys needed someone framed or a problem fixed, they called McGill. In the days before he decided to go straight, he helped to frame a young woman named Zella for a bank robbery. She had just been arrested for shooting her philandering boyfriend three times while he was in bed with one of her best friends. The boyfriend survived, and Zella was sent to prison. She might have gotten off altogether if not for the $10,000 from the heist that McGill planted in her storage locker. The frame didn’t hold up in court, but it was enough to get the book thrown at her for the crime everyone knew for certain she did commit.

Fast forward eight years, and McGill has used a lawyer friend to get her sprung from prison on bail as a means of assuaging his guilty conscience. He makes contact with her and helps her get back on her feet, and she asks him to find her child whom she gave up while she was in prison. McGill agrees, but as soon as he starts poking into her past it becomes apparent that there are more people interested in Zella’s release: the securities company that lost millions of dollars in the heist, the original heist men, the police who know McGill is dirty and think he had something to do with the heist. And then there’s whoever is sending hitmen after McGill and Zella. When two masked men burst into the McGill family apartment (and receive a one-two punch of lethal kickassery for their trouble) the ex-bad guy declares war on his attackers and vows to get to the bottom of the eight year old robbery and make whoever is behind it all pay.

That, ostensibly, is what the book is about. At least, that’s what the back cover will try to sell you on. But all of it—the heist, the murders, hitmen in the night—is just window dressing. The more important story is the development of Leonid McGill’s character, and his family plays a big part in that. There’s his militant revolutionary father who left him in grade school and never came back, There’s his Scandinavian wife who hates him and needs him at the same time. There’s his three grown children, of whom only one is his biological progeny and who just happens to be the one who hates him the most. Oh, and then there’s the girlfriend he’s estranged from but he still loves. Did I miss anything? Maybe, but I’m sure you get the idea. While Zella and the heist and all that mess are the main thrust of the story, it’s interwoven with elements of McGill’s family life and family history. It makes the narrative somewhat choppy (though no less interesting) with him constantly jumping back and forth to different strands of the plot, but it worked for me. The one thing I really didn’t like about All I Did Was Shoot My Man was the fact that the book was filled to the brim with characters and personalities from previous McGill books. I understand why Mosley included them, since they aid in the development of McGill’s character, but it was annoying having to catch up with umpteen different pet characters that didn’t really have anything to do with the main plot. Each time Mosley was careful to include an explanation of the who’s and what’s of the past adventures, but still. Annoying.

Another thing I noticed—not a criticism of anything, but more an observation—is the importance Mosley puts on race when developing his characters and the amount of interracial relationships depicted in the story. It all makes sense when you consider Mosley’s personal lineage (he’s half Black, half Jewish), but what’s really interesting to me is that there’s very little importance given to a person’s race in the context of the story. It’s as if the point of the whole thing is to drive home the idea that race isn’t at all important by painstakingly defining it and then not having it really matter at all. And there are a few instances where race does play a part, but by and large it seems like Mosley is trying to paint the story with an almost post-racial brush. I dunno, maybe I’m way off base. I probably am, but I can’t help trying to analyze crap. I’m a wannabe literary critic. It says so in the bio.

Overall All I Did Was Shoot My Man is a fast-paced, gritty mystery written by an author who really knows his stuff. Walter Mosley's intellect and breadth really shine through in his work, which is just one of the reasons why I'll be reading more from him in the near future. I give All I Did Was Shoot My Man four stars.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished this a while ago and forgot to record it!

For people who really like mysteries with a suspenseful vibe and gritty urban realism, I imagine this would at least be a 4 star or maybe a 5 star read. It's very very good at doing what it does, but it's just not really my thing. I guess I like escapist English countryside mysteries better (ha ha, from my sample size of two books). For me personally it's probably more of a 3 star, but I decided to give it 4 stars for the potential I think it has for readers who like this kind of stuff.

Super complex, tight, layered plot, both in terms of Leonid's PI cases and his personal life, which may have felt more complicated for me than it really was as I jumped into the fourth book featuring Leonid McGill (I'm guessing some secondary characters I was meeting for the first time had likely already been introduced in earlier volumes). Some very interesting takes on morality (everything is a grey area), family (non-traditional family structures), and racism and race (some really elegant writing near the end of the book on that from the African-American detective's [and author's] POV). Some really nice writing in parts as well, and a bit of philosophical musings. It was a lot of different things jumbled together that could have ended up disjointed, but somehow it all worked.

Again, this wasn't really my thing but I can see how fantastic and well-done an example of its genre it is. I would not hesitate to suggest this to readers looking for what it delivers!

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The understated and ironic title is what first caught my eye, but this book lived up to its catchy title. “All I Did Was Shoot My Man” is filled with complex underworld NYC characters. The protagonist Leonid McGill is a complicated mix of good and bad. It feels real. You’ll see that in the opening scene at NYC’s Port Authority bus terminal. You wouldn’t want to hang out with Leonid McGill, but he takes you into the gritty side of NYC.

His present life is somewhat of a mess, but that’s he’s working through it all, trying to correct a lot of mistakes he made in the past.

You don’t have to read the Leonid McGill series in order. This was a re-read for me, but it’s also where I began with the series, and this novel gives you plenty of backstory.

[Randy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a long time fan of Walter Mosley's work, especially his Easy Rawlins mysteries and the blues-flavored RL's Dream. The Leonid McGill mysteries are a bit different.

McGill is hired to the Zella Grisham, arriving on a bus, just out of prison after serving eight years of a fifteen year sentence for shooting her boy friend after catching him in bed with her best friend. She'd never denied it, just didn't remember it, and prosecutors hadn't been inclined to try her. That is, until the paper bands from bundles of money were found in her storage locker, part of a fifty-eight million dollar cash theft from the company across the street where she worked. Her refusal to give up her confederates had got her sent to prison for the shooting insead.

McGill had proved she wasn't part of the theft and the rest of her term was commuted. It hadn't been hard to prove as McGill was the one who'd framed her. Now a mostly straight PI(slightly bent, not crooked), back then he'd been a fixer of problems. He wanted to help her get straightened out(she wanted to meet the parents who'd adopted the child(her boy friend's) after birth in prison and see her daughter.

To do that, he was going to have to find out who the real thieves were and where that large sum of money(part of a hold for a Saudi prince's oil fleet) had disappeared to.

As his investigation progressed, several things started to happen. The company robbed back then seemed especially unhelpful, a red flag in his mind and two hit men, imported from Europe, broke into his home and tried to murder him. Fortunately his three children were out and his security system alerted him in time for him to meet them in the hallway outside his bedroom. There, naked but for a pistol, he shot one and crushed the other's throat with his free hand.

That had to mean he was getting close. He'd already learned that the boy friend Zella had shot and the best friend had dropped off the face of the Earth shortly before her trial. The third hit man accelerated his thinking. The clues were there. He just had to figure them out.

This series is a bit different. McGill has a wife he's not close to anymore(they each go their won way though they continue to live together. He has three children, only the oldest of which is his, but he loves them all. His girl friend is not sure what to do with him.

Recommended.

[Betty-Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter Mosely’s Leonid McGill is not a good man. He isn’t necessarily a bad man either, but he has done some really bad things in the past. Product of a dysfunctional home and the enabler of another of his own making, he has decided to change his life around and atone for the wrong he has done.

In this fourth outing in the series, All I Did Was Shoot My Man, this means arranging for the release of Zella Grisham, and helping her get back on her feet. Zella (to whom the title of the book refers) was framed by McGill for a larger crime than the one which she actually committed, involving a multi-million dollar heist. Once she’s out of jail however, both she and McGill discover that there is much more to the heist than either of them ever knew about. This is the basis for the action which follows.

The ‘whodunit’ aspect of the book is well plotted and entertaining. I wasn’t able to figure out who was really behind the heist before the end of the book, which for me is quite unusual, so I have to say I definitely enjoyed the mystery. However, the development of McGill’s character, his interactions with his wife, children, lover and the various other persons who people his world, are without a doubt the best part of this book. As much as I love Mosely’s Easy Rawlins, Leonid McGill is fast becoming a new favorite of mine.

This was a very fast-paced read, and very enjoyable. It would appeal to readers who enjoy noir with a difference, as well as interesting characters and a solid plot.

[Marissa Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Either I didn't drink enough coffee today, or the plot of this book is hard to follow. Eight years ago there was a big heist, and some dozen characters were either involved in the heist or played a role in its cover-up. Some of those characters are now dead men with no more to identify them than their names (or, in one case, a rotting corpse), some are described in a paragraph or two but never appear in person in the book, and some--many?--have nicknames and aliases (I couldn't give more than a rough estimate about how many characters this book actually has, on account of all the fake names). Further complicating things, at one point Mosely calls a character by her first name in one scene and then uses her surname throughout the next scene in which she appears. I reread that second scene twice before I recognized her.

These are minor complaints, however, since I'd much rather follow Leonid McGill blindly through a novel than spend time with just about any other fictional character. The ending is great, with a couple of big cliffhangers. I hope that the next installment in this series gets published soon!

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read a lot of Mosley. Have him listed as one of my favorite authors. This tome however was a muddled mess. I was never sure whether Mosley was more interested in solving the very thin plot of the "mystery" or giving me added back story of his protagonists family dynamics. Which were really just a repeat of things already spelled out in the first three books of the Leonid McGill series. Mosley seemed to introduce a new character in each succeeding chapter. Some that came and went in the space of a couple pages and contributing very little other than more confusion. Mosey dangle a subplot of possible reunification with the detectives long lost father which (Spoiler Alert) goes nowhere. After some 300 pages of confusion one of those 2 page characters from the first part of the book makes a reappearance and the mystery is solved in 2 pages near the end. Not his best work.

[Kelly Knapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Walter Mosley is a very eclectic writer. If the ratings were based soley on Mosley's abilities He would surely have five stars. However, ratings include several factors.

I found it impossible to connect with the author's protagonist. McGill does nothing in the beginning of the book to entice a reader to continue or finish this story. I struggled through most of it.

McGill is, no was, a base and mean man. If it was dirty,he ws probably into it some where. And if some bigwig wanted to avoid the police or the court, Mcgill could be paid to place evidence on another, usually sleazier cohortjustifying it with the fact that they deserved time for some crime, just not the one they with which they were being charged.

But eight years ago, he was paid to place evidence of a crime on a woman, Zella, whose only crime was one of passion. She came home to find her man in bed with her best friend going at it on her quilt, a gift from her aunt. She lost it, pulled a gun and fired three shots. They all hit home, but none were life threatening. McGill hadn't felt right about planting this evidence so he took out some insurance.

However, that same week a large assurance company had been robbed of $52 million dollars, and somehow fifty thousand of it was found in Zella's storage space. Unjustly accused, Zella couldn't give up any accomplices because she had none. So, The judge and DA gave her the max for assult, 16 years.

Mcgill had sunk to the bottem. Then, his contact was murdered. McGill is angry. He want to go straight but there is one thing always bothering him, Zella. So, he hires an well known attorney, give over his insurance policy and Zella is released "for good behavior." Still, the
assurance company wants its money back and if going after Zella is the way...

Now McGill has to protect her, find the real perps, and the money so Zella can live a free life. But he has problems of his own. His wife is unhappy and drinking, his eldest son is moving out, and his youngest will only stay clean if he can work with his Dad.

One point in McGill's favor. He knows that only one of his children is his blood, but he loves all three as if they were his own.

Aside from that, I found too much coarse language, but not unexpected considering how base McGill has become.

I won this on Goodreads Firstreads Giveaway program

[Larraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fourth Leonid McGill novel by Walter Mosley proves once again that Mosley is really one of our finest novelists. If you haven't read any of the Leonid McGill books in the past, it's not that difficult to dip into the series at #4. Leonid is a private detective with a "bent" past who is trying to make up for his past misdeeds. He has done some downright criminal things and is always being watched by the police, but always manages to elude them.

In an excellent NPR interview and discussion of the book, it is referred to as a "book of atonement." That's exactly what it is. McGill is feeling guilty for having helped set up a woman named Zella who shot (non-fatally) her boyfriend when she found him in bed with her best friend. A woman McGill has done some work for in the past asks him to plant some incriminating evidence in Zella's storage locker. As a result her sentence is a lot longer than it would have been, plus she is forced to give up her child. Now McGill is trying to help her through his attorney.

Of course there are ALWAYS complications, and this one's complications just keep multiplying. I love Mosley's language and this book is no exception. "Men were trying to kill me, but so what? I was reborn. A born-again agnostic risen from the ashes of faith." THIS kind of writing is why I LOVE Walter Mosley!

[Andre(Read-A-Lot) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The plot and story has been well documented here, so it will remain absent in my review. The crime and all of its' relations almost seem secondary to Mosley's sundry riffs on people and society. He is like a jazz artist in that way, and the various characters are merely instruments to help us experience the world through the eyes of a gifted writer. A very enjoyable book, one than is well paced, and you will not finger the person responsible for the heist until the very end. This yearning and deliberation always makes for a good who-done-it. I like the way Mosley works in characters from earlier books in the series, some may be bothered by this, but I love the reminders. If you read the other McGill books, this will be less of a distraction.

I can see Mosley almost hinting at another series, perhaps a younger PI,......interesting. The ending was very surprising, because of a meeting that didn't happen. I was actually looking forward to the encounter that perhaps may come in the next book. You can rarely go wrong with any Mosley book and this one is no exception.

[Vannessa Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leonid McGill has his hands filled with a case that entangles his past.

Leonid has his hands full dealing with his alcoholic wife, his oldest son dropping out of college and living with an ex-prostitute, his youngest son who works with him trying to do the job without straying outside the law and Leonid’s long lost father, thought dead and showing up under an alias.

With all of this on his plate Leonid is trying to defend Zella Grisham, accused of murdering Harry, her husband, whom she doesn’t remember murdering but believes she’s capable of murdering him and where all the evidence leads to Zella. Leonid is determined to prove her innocence.

Author Walter Mosely is one of my favorite authors as he writes believable stories with believable characters.

I enjoyed Mirron Willis’s storytelling so much I’m going to look for other books he’s narrated.

[Monique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leonid McGill is a private investigator with a checkered past. As he embarks on the later quarter of his life righting past wrongs take control. First he fixes the case against Zella Grisham but her release from prison starts a domino sequence that threatens to destroy everyone connected to her. As Leonid works through the madness, his life continues to unravel - his wife breaks through her depression, an old flame returns offering her heart, Zella's baby is found, his family is nearly killed and he thinks he saw his father. The action and mystery rolls through every page with barrels blazing. The characters are complex and the storyline unpredictable perhaps too much at times. This was my first Leonid McGill mystery but it definitely won't be my last.

[Daniel Sevitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice entry in the series switching between real cases and real peril and Leonid's strange and exhausting family.

I like the contrast between this series with its cellphones and computer hacking and Mosley's period-set Easy Rawlins books. Good to know there's already another one of these for me.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more I read the Mcgill series the more I like it. Another great job Mr.Mosley!

[Rae Lewis-Thornton · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG!! This was the best of the Leonid McGill Series!!

[Wilde Sky · Rating 2 out of 5]

A detective investigates an old robbery.

I thought this book was a bit of a mess – a lot of the time I couldn’t figure out who was talking / thinking and most of the writing was a bit clunky.

[Aleatha Terrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I predicted the cliffhanger at the end and I still have to read the next book to find out what happens.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his fourth mystery Leonid McGill takes on the case of Zella Grisham. Eight years before she was found with a dead boyfriend, $50,000 of the $58 million haul from a recent heist - and no memory of what happened. Now out of jail she hires McGill. He is convinced of her innocence. At the same time, he must deal with a wife who is drinking too much and the various problems of his children. To top it off, his long-lost father turns up for a visit.He must solve the twin mysteries of what happened in Zella's case and what it takes to make and hold a family. This is a series that has hit its stride and keeps on its sure-footed way in each new installment.

[Ayny · Rating 3 out of 5]

He did it again, got into another one in the series and there are more new characters and old ones.
Plus, The ending is a cliff hanger.
This McGill is so full of himself and too much time describing everyone's clothing and skin colour.

[Ava · Rating 1 out of 5]

dnf :(

[Eddie Generous · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big fun. Pulpy in a James Bond kind of way (McGill has spectacular tools--people usually--at his disposal). Accessible writing, and with voice. Definitely will be checking out more Moseley.

[Ruth Chatlien · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read four Leonid McGill novels by Walter Mosley, and I really like this character. Not sure I will grow as attached to Easy Rawlings, but I probably need to read more than one novel to decide.

[Daniel Herman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot in here. Maybe a bit too much.