Known to Evil

In The Long Fall ,Walter Mosley introduces his fans to a new private detective, Leonid McGill. Known To Evil is Mosley's second book in the new mystery series. As McGill goes about his mystery solving business, memories of his deceased communist father arise. He hates his father for abandoning him and killing his mother by "walking out on her." Yet Leonid admires him for teaching good lessons before he left.

One lesson involves a woven finger-trap from Chinatown in New York City. After his father showed him the trick to remove his fingers from the trap, he asked Leonid what he learned. The young McGill replies: Nuthin'. His father expresses dismay because he taught his son "one of the most important lessons that any man from Joe Street Sweeper to President Kennedy needs to learn." To wit: "It is always easier getting into trouble than it is getting out."

Becoming a ward of the state caused McGill to do things he now regrets at age fifty-four. Although he has changed, leaving behind his crooked ways to walk the straight and narrow path, he can get into trouble without even trying. This is especially true with the cops who keep a close watch upon him, trying to pin raps on him for crimes he did not commit. McGill has a beautiful wife, but there is no love between them. His heart is broken because a woman he loves, with whom he had an affair when his wife left him for a dalliance with another man, has told him she is in love with another man.

When McGill is taking a mind-walk in the past with his father, Mosley is able to slip some political ideology into the novel. A bit of Mosley shows up in McGill's character, such as when McGill decides three minutes of self-pity is enough of that and snaps out of it. The mystery starts when, the only man McGill fears, requests McGill's help with a job starting: right now. Rinaldo is politically connected and fixes messes using connections to do all kinds of dirty deeds including murder.

McGill lays down his rules to Rinaldo's assistant, the go-between, called Strange. Strange tells McGill that is not the way things are done and will report the conversation to his boss. Not wanting to cross Rinaldo, the assignment simple (check on the welfare of a young woman named Tara), McGill leaves the dinner table, dons a suit and walks right into a murder scene. He tells true-lies to the detectives at the scene to gather information. The murder victim's face was shot off, but not likely to be Tara. It appears to McGill the victim was killed by a hit man with a silencer on his gun. That does not explain the dead man's being stabbed to death.

Strange having strangely disappeared, McGill speaks to Rinaldo, himself,. McGill asks Rinaldo if Strange reported the conversation. Yes he did which is why Rinaldo wants him on the job and the search for Tara begins.

At 326 pages, Known To Evil is a bit longer than most of Mosley's other mystery novels. This makes it more complex and less fast-paced than his Easy Rawlins mystery series. Yet, Walter Mosley, an excellent writer, easily draws readers into a story, holding their attention until last page is turned. Will Mosley's many fans like his new mystery man? I am a fan and I do..

Known To Evil was published by Riverhead Books a member or Penguin Group (USA) . It is available from major on-line booksellers offering discounts off list price of $25.95. For more information on Walter Mosley's other novels, fiction, Sci-Fi, non-fiction visit his website at Walter Mosley dot com.