Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

“Mr. McGill?” Mardi Bitterman said over the intercom that connects her desk at the front of our office complex to mine at the far end.

Trouble is what I Do by Walter Mosley

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This is the second Leonid McGill novel I’ve read and I don’t really remember much about the first one. McGill is a contemporary detective, a former boxer, still in shape, dangerous with his hands and weapons, knows everyone, and works in various undergrounds in various capacities. What’s strange about this book is that it is considerably shorter than the other McGill books. In addition, what’s strange about contemporary detective novels is that the character generally has to contend with modern technology in some way. And […]

Vacation Reading

All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka

The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos

Pickup At Union Station by Gary Reilly

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I got some great reading done while I was on vacation this past week. No knockouts but a nice range of good-to-good-enough books. Didn’t have time or resources to catalogue each individually so I’ll do small reviews of every book here. All I Did Was Shoot My Man I continue to be pleasantly mystified by Walter Mosley’s Leonid McGill series. These books are so odd, so transgressive considering what else is out there. He clearly has a gift for this kind of writing. The plot […]

Some years ago I published a monograph entitled This Year You Write Your Novel.

Elements of Fiction by Walter Mosley

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I picked up this book from the new books shelf at the library while I was waiting for my oil to get changed. It’s a weirdly harmless book that annoyed in a few particular ways. I generally like Walter Mosley novels, but he’s got that thing that almost every prolific novelist has, the inability to not write a book that he’s thinking about writing. That’s why he’s published so many books in his career, and for every very good one, there’s some really really bad […]

A Different Type

When The Thrill Is Gone by Walter Mosley

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Walter Mosley’s Leonid McGill books are different than the standard issue PI fare. They’re different than his own Easy Rawlins ones. They’re hardboiled but they’re also…I don’t know. There’s a lot going on. You go headfirst into this world but Mosley refuses to let you see it all. The way he reveals things and keeps you guessing. These books are so transgressive against the typical PI fare. I think that’s because Leonid McGill isn’t really a private eye. I mean, I guess he is in […]

Your Enemies Closer

Known to Evil by Walter Mosley

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Walter Mosley is such a versatile writer. While most famous for his Easy Rawlins mystery series, he’s worked in just about every genre one can think of: noir, hardboiled, scifi, fictional bio. The guy can do it all. The Leonid McGill series is the first series of his I’ve ventured from Easy Rawlins in his oeuvre. And it’s like they were written by two different people. Mosley got his writing start in the 80s. His books would get progressively better. As much as I enjoy Devil […]

Tripping the Light Fantastique

The Long Fall by Walter Mosley

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I’ve been going through Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series the last few years and mostly enjoying it. He’s a good writer with a solid sense of time (post-WWII Los Angeles), a compelling character, and a point-of-view that many readers don’t get from “mainstream” (re: dominantly white) mystery writers. I hadn’t thought much of reading his Leonid McGill series, which is basically Easy Rawlins set in New York in contemporary times. But as I’ve been on a big New York City reading kick lately, I figured […]



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