Synopses & Reviews
Paris Minton is minding his own business a small used bookstore of which he is the proud proprietor when a beautiful woman named Elana Love walks in and asks a few questions. Within the next twenty-four hours, Paris has been beaten up, made love to, shot at, and robbed, and his bookstore has been burned to the ground. He's in so much trouble he has no choice but to get his friend Fearless Jones out of jail to help.
Fearless Jones is an army veteran, a man who is proud of his accomplishments during World War II and refuses to step into the background now that the war is over. Violence dogs Fearless's every step, and Paris has tried to keep his distance. But there's no friend like the one you need.
The two set out to find the elusive Elana Love, and every step leads them deeper into a bewildering vortex of money and betrayal. Their questions bring out a ruthless and racist cop, a gang of vicious ex-cons, and an elderly Jewish woman who is as determined to help the two friends as others are to harm them. These two black men in 1950s Los Angeles have few rights, little money, and no recourse under attack. But they have their friends, their wits, and their knowledge of the way the world really works to help them prevail.
Written with the blazing pace of noir classics like The Maltese Falcon, Fearless Jones also possesses the humor and original insights into American places and characters that have made Walter Mosley one of the most admired writers of our time.
Review
"The parallels to the Rawlins novels Paris is a slightly more bookish Easy, while Fearless suggests a sweeter but equally lethal Mouse never feel repetitive but, instead, add depth and resonance to the series, as Mosley views his larger theme of race relations in postwar Los Angeles from a slightly new perspective." Bill Ott, Booklist
Review
"Even though it becomes increasingly difficult to keep straight just who is double-crossing whom, Mosley remains more concerned with character development than plot machinations, just as he was in all of his Easy Rawlins novels." Don McLeese, Book Magazine
Review
"Mosley is still able to convey some of the difficulties of surviving in a racist, pre-Civil Rights society, but the quirky charm and devastating mood of postwar South Central L.A. are less pronounced in this novel than in his Easy Rawlins books." Library Journal
Review
"[F]ans starved for the mean streets of Watts...will rejoice in a prose style richer and more artfully stripped down than ever in the genre's first must-read of the year..." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Walter Mosley, "one of crime fiction's brightest stars" (People), returns to mysteries at last-with a dazzling new thriller set in the deadly back alleys of 1950s L.A.... Bookshop owner Paris Minton is minding his own business when a brief encounter with a beautiful stranger gets him beaten, shot at, robbed, and then burned out of store and home. Paris needs help but his secret weapon-brave, reckless WWII hero Fearless Jones-is in jail. Vowing to dish out some heavy justice, Paris plots to get Jones back on the street. But when these two men come together, they'll find themselves trapped in a bewildering vortex of sex, money, and murder-and a dicey endgame that's littered with dangerous players...
About the Author
Walter Mosley is the author of the bestselling Easy Rawlins series of mysteries, the novel R.L.'s Dream, and the story collection Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, for which he received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. He was born in Los Angeles and has been at various times in his life a potter, a computer programmer, and a poet. His books have been translated into twenty languages. He lives in New York.