The second of renowned US writer Walter Mosley's new series featuring Leonid McGill, a short, fat, black ex-criminal private eye.
Also a useful boxer, McGill is going straight as a PI, but is drawn back into dubious company by Alphonse Rinaldo, a shadowy figure who seems to control the mayor of NYC. Rinaldo commands Leonid to keep a fatherly eye on a young woman, without any explanation. When he visits the address provided, he walks straight into a murder scene, where a young woman has been shot, but it is not the lady in question.
The police, always keen to nail McGill for past felonies and misdemeanors, give him the run-around and to save himself from both them and Rinaldo, our hero has to crack the case himself, in spite of his own domestic problems, a wife playing away and two children who are a trial to him.
This is a nice change from the usual “NY/LA PI” story, and is written with humour and good characterisation, perhaps to be expected from an author who has sold three million books.