And Sometimes I Wonder About You

Starred review from March 30, 2015
Leonid McGill slogs his way through a morass of personal and professional problems in Mosley's outstanding fifth mystery featuring the New York City PI (after 2012's All I Did Was Shoot My Man). People giving him trouble include a modern-day Fagin, who's entangled with McGill's son Twill in some criminal enterprises; the ex-fiancé of a woman McGill is involved with; and a client he rejected. Women have always complicated McGill's life and continue to do so: his emotionally fragile wife, Katrina, is in a sanatorium after a failed suicide attempt; his sometime lover, Aura Ullman, is keeping her distance; and he's attracted to the beautiful Marella Herzog, whom he meets on the train from Philadelphia to New York. McGill deals with his professional problems with a combination of brute force and wiliness, while the women in his life tie him in emotional knots. The return of his father, Tolstoy McGill, the left-wing revolutionary who abandoned his family years ago, roils McGill even more than the women. Mosley's sharp ear for dialogue and talent for sketching memorable characters are much in evidence in this installment, further deepening his complex lead. Agent: Gloria Loomis, Watkins/Loomis Agency.

Mosley's latest in his McGill series, narrated by Prentice Onayemi, packs all the punch fans expect from the boxing P.I. In little more than two weeks, McGill juggles three women and gains the upper hand (and some uppercuts) over three sets of bad guys. Onayemi has plenty to juggle himself: In quick succession, characters young, old, white, black, refined, and thuggish slink, stumble, or explode into the storyline. As McGill himself decries, there's hardly a moment between door knocks and the ringing phone to express an emotion, yet Onayemi manages to do so and to maintain character. McGill's three cases--sandwiched between family scenes and lovemaking--never truly intersect, but individually they entertain, and collectively they further develop the featured character in Mosley's latest series. K.W. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine