Get Hold Of And Sometimes I Wonder About You (Leonid McGill #5) Fashioned By Walter Mosley Accessible Through Textbook

in this Mosely. So overblown and ridiculous that only his skilled writing stopped me laughing out load at how silly it was, Very unlike the excellent easy Rawlins series and much more like a James Lee Burke Dave Robichaux story with all the attendant overdescription, Won't bother with another Leonid McGill, For me, Walter Mosley has entered that rarefied air of priority, His books have become events not to be missed or ignored for any length of time, When one of his mysteries are published, it takes precedence over any other reading that is currently taking place, The title of thisth Leonid McGill installment, comes from Leonid saying to his wife, Katrina,“ Sometimes I think that everybody in the world is crazy, ” I said, quoting myself, “ except for me and you and sometimes I wonder about you.
 ”

Mosley always does a superb job of refamiliarizing the reader with the basic cast of characters and thus makes it easy for one to pick up any of the McGill mysteries without concern about order.
This is an otherworldly talent, and he makes it look easy, So, the crew is all here as we gallop along trying to solve some mysteries, Yes, plural. He has a few storylines going on in this one, There is one that is highly unlikely, and is a minor distraction from what is otherwise a fine offering,

This is the typical Mosley fare, page turning action, witty dialogue, a host of characters, and the always prevalent questions of why and how.
Another enjoyable mystery and McGill, dare I say is becoming as popular as Easy Rawlins, This was the best Leonid McGill so far, . Loved it!! Walter Mosley is, in my opinion, one of the best writers we have in the United States, Personally, I think he is undervalued because so many of his books are "crime novels, " This is theth in the Leonid McGill series about a complex and somewhat enigmatic private detective, former thug, still viewed with suspicion by the NYPD.
Leonid bears the name of a former Soviet leader because his father was an unabashed member of the American Communist Party, In this book, Leonid learns that his son, Twill, who is now working in his detective agency, is out on his own without consulting him and has placed himself in a very dangerous place.
At the same time, Leonid is on a job in Philly and meets up with a beautiful but very dangerous woman with whom he begins a passionate affair.
In the meantime, his wife is in a private hospital after having committed suicide, He feels guilty because he doesn't love her, but still cares for her, He loves Aura, the woman who manages the building where he rents his office, However, they haven't seen one another for a while, and he misses her, He soon learns that Twill is up to his neck in a secret group dominated by a Faginlike character who calls himself Jones and and employs a group of young people who commit an incredible number of crimes every year.
To complicate things even further, a man who had requested his help with a case is found murdered, It doesn't take long for him to learn that there is far more to this than he realized, Leonid isn't a hero. He is willing to blackmail anyone who he thinks deserves it, He doesn't want to kill, but will do so when he must, This is such an interesting and complex character, If you haven't read any of them, start at the beginning, Walter Mosley is worth savoring, Dont worry about spoilers, I intend to avoid putting you through that minefield,
Walter Mosley has written overbooks and five of the more recent ones star Leonid McGill, private eye, These books take us through most of McGills past six years since LT as he is known to some intimates turned a moral corner and shed as much of the dark side as he could.

For those who have followed Mosley through signature characters such as Easy Rawlins and Socrates Fortlow, you may be thinking , as I am beginning to do, that LT is a particular favorite of this author.
Mosley is always about the inequalities of the human condition and how we make our choices in the midst of how we are being treated, There is no doubt that he can draw on a long and deep line of documentation when we are talking about the legal system and AfricanAmericans.

McGill, with his straddle of the underground world, his interracial marriage, his fierce concern for children his and others, his balancing of the physical and intellectual, and his gourmand enjoyment of food, drink and sex whether it be a long term relationship or a cup of coffee in a cardboard cup, makes me think that Mosley has a lot beyond plot that he wants to convey.

LT is a contemporary urban P, I. who uses all his connections and their technosavvy to augment his own ability to see deep into the people he deals with clients included and go beyond the facades they show to the world.
He is a quite flawed person, due to many factors ranging from his early survival on the streets to the deeds he has committed and wishes he could take back.
Because of his past, he is known to many of New York Citys police and endures continual confrontations and provocations, many of those are understandable from the constabularys point of view.


Here is how Mosley describes him in an interview: “Leonid is a guy who, in theth century, committed all these crimes, He was a criminal. He did all these awful things, And now, in thest century, he realized that he was wrong, and now hes trying to do whats right, And doing whats right is incredibly difficult for him, you know, because heseverybody knows him as this bad guythe police, the criminals, everybody else, And also, everything he knows has to do with this criminal life he lived, And so, for me, its an incredibly political novel, though I never overtly talk about politics at all, I just talk about this guy who was one way in theth century, and hes another way in thesthis father was an anarchist, who mistakenly thought he was a communist, who was involved inyou know, in all kinds of political movements.
He goes down to South America to fight in the revolution and never comes back, Leonids mother, you know, trained Leonid at home 'til he was age of, You know, at the age of, he's reading Hegel, You know, hes reading Emma Goldman, And he knows that stuff, He knows it even still today, But his mother dies. His father is gone. He lives on the street, He becomes a criminal. He uses this knowledge to inform his criminal life, rather than to inform any kind of political life, ”

There is a satisfying grittiness to Mosleys Manhattan, He accomplishes this as much through his characters as through any location description, Certainly reminiscent of his ability to give us Los Angeles with all its warts, it also resonates with Max Allan Collins, Ross McDonald and, no surprise, Raymond Chandler.
If I have just read one of the McGills, any visit to NYC serves to heighten my sensitivities to my surroundings,

In And Sometimes I Wonder About You, Mosley is fast out of the chute with a noir plot that has LT coming to the rescue of a beautiful woman of questionable ethics on the Amtrak Regional from Philly to NYC.
With the dexterity of a Cirque du Soliel juggler, Mosley keeps adding to the plot at a fevered pace picking up pieces from the previous stories: LTs wifes attempted suicide his office managers imprisoned father LTs desire to track down the father that abandoned him the cops trying to tie him to an assault and, what his youngest son who he has taken into his P.
I. work is up to on his own, It also includes assignments to track down two women and a man and find out who broke into his office and who murdered a client, And this is only the start within the first seventy pages! Mosley deftly manages to make this smoothly transition from one element to the next,

But the pleasure isnt confined to either plot or character, Mosley must love language because he can do so many amazing things with it, Examples:
“It struck me that our conversation was like an aged wine rather than a freshly squeezed juice, ”
“I was looking at the closed door, thinking that everything was possible but little of that possibility was likely, Life was like a rats maze tended by some insane god that tortured and shepherded us for some reason he or maybe she could no longer remember.
”
“She smiled and brushed past me, At that proximity I got a whiff of something both acrid and sweet, like some ancient forests Id been in, It was a mild scent that caused a strong reaction in a section of my heart that had almost been forgotten, ”
“All those years working out in Gordos boxing gym had honed my reflexes until they almost had minds of their own, I couldnt go ten rounds anymore but in a profession like mine survival was rarely about endurance, ”

Every character gets a full physical description from LT followed by his insights into their personality, The descriptions are full of wonderful details: “Tall, maybe fiveeight, and thin, she had brunette hair and skin that took to the sun a white girl no more than twenty, her face was plain and pretty by turns with eyes promising intelligence, patience, and empathy While she hesitated I studied her couture.
The silk blouse was blue with an underlying patina

of gray, Her black pants looked to be cashmere as did the emerald sweater she had draped on her shoulders, No purse. Not much makeup either. ”

There is a lot of care given to the dialogue care that reflects each characters education and station in life in its cadence and vocabulary.
This is part of the delight in reading these books, And, this one doesnt disappoint with its plot twists and tension and thoughtprovoking encounters,
I thoroughly enjoyed this book for reasons that elude me, I could barely figure out what the main action was, and who all the characters were, But what I loved about it is that the main character is unique, He's an older black gentleman who is a successful detective in NYC, He used to be a boxer and sometimes still dabbles in it, so he is super strong and when anybody tries to pick a fight with him, he is ready for it.
For example, a guy on the street demands his wallet and he responds " You can have it but you have to take it out of my pocket.
" The guys backs off and runs away, On the flip side of that coin, when he goes to visit a woman in her hotel room and she meets him naked at the door, he immediately picks her up on his shoulders and proceeds to give her a certain sexual delight.

I was impressed with his brute strength but he's also surrounded by all sorts of interesting characters: his wife who just tried to kill herself his son who is a junior detective in his office his father who is a charming Communist his receptionist who visits her father in prison after he was convicted of child molestation, etc.
, etc. , etc. .