Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right

It’s the names that tell those new to Mosley that they’re in for something special: the main character, King’s, of course, but then there are Forthright Jorgensen, Gladstone Palmer, and Melquarth Frost. Dickens, look out. Studded with descriptions such as “like grooming a fancy doll with razor blades in her hair” and characters who resemble “a human container of stoppered rage,” Mosley’s tale of love lost and found and inner strength battling terrible odds sees his PI Joe King Oliver helping two women this time. One is his grandmother, Grandma B. She wants to see her son, King’s long-incarcerated father, one more time before she dies, which won’t be far off. Then King’s PI business sets him on the search for a woman whose husband is looking for her, only it looks like King shouldn’t tell the man her whereabouts. Our hero’s emotions as he barely contains the pain of losing his father to jail just so the man could keep his pride intact wonderfully gird this fast-moving tale of the guts it takes to stay true to tough beginnings.