Fear Itself by
Walter Mosley
pbk out October 03
(Serpent's Tail)
at £12
"A sudden banging on the front door sent a chill down my neck and into my
chest. It was two thirty-nine in the morning." The opening line of this new Mosley
novel sent a chill down my neck too. Even though I wasn't reading it at two thirty-
nine in the morning. I was cosied up by a fire in my favourite armchair. By the time I
had finished the book it could well have been two thirty-nine in the morning, if I had
let it. Mosley's books get you like that.
This is the sequel to Fearless Jones, and once again the uneducated and
violent Jones is palled up with the fearful, bookish and bright Paris Minton. Minton
has set himself up with a small bookstore, and is ready for a quiet life of reading, and
selling second-hand books and comics. But then his life is thrown off-path by the
arrival of Fearless Jones, who has agreed to assist a beautiful woman in the search for
her missing husband. The trouble is, Leora Hartman is not the only one trying to find
Kit Mitchell, watermelon grower. Several other people want him too, including the
LAPD. The next person to turn up at Paris's door is the dangerous Theodore
Timmerman, a white man working for a black man - bail bondsman, Milo Sweet.
Soon Paris Minton is running for his life. As always in Mosley's novels, the stark
difference in the lives of whites and blacks in the America of the 1950s forms a
backdrop to Paris and Fearless's hunt for the truth. Rich, white siblings, Lawrence
and Minna Drexler are found dead, and it's no place for two black men to be, innocent
though they are. The trouble is, is Leora really Kit Mitchell's wife? And why is her
rich aunt Winifred Fine so interested in Kit's whereabouts, and in the location of a
missing book? You know the process of discovery will require Paris to use his brains,
and Fearless his fists
Mosley's cool style, its tempo reminiscent of the sparest of Thelonius Monk's
jazz piano pieces, never fails to satisfy. The evocation of Watts and black after-hours
clubs which "colored train professionals patronized" immerses us in the dark, moody
urban culture of the African-American experience. When he tells us "All porters,
waiters, restroom attendants and redcaps went there..." you know the subtext is that
these were the only jobs open to black men at the time. The twists and turns of the
plot lead you to unexpected conclusions, and a re-examination of the relative roles of
Paris and Fearless in their unusual partnership.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
Fear Itself by
Walter Mosley
