If you want to understand Joe Oliver, Mosely’s front man in his latest offering, then look no further than his tastes in books and music. He took to reading when he was locked up on Rikers Island, having been framed for a crime he didn’t commit. Throughout this tale he’s ever reaching for a book and most often it’s Remarque’s 1929 tome All Quiet on the Western Front – a story of the extreme mental stress imposed on German soldiers during WWI and how they often found themselves detached from civi...

Dear Mr. Mosley. Why all the misery? Isn't there anything good in life besides the daughter? I suppose the money is alright, except for all the pain and suffering it took. 3 of 10 stars

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 / 5 rounded up. First of all, thank you to Little, Brown and Company for sending me a review copy of this book! All opinions are my own. I had a REALLY hard time rating Down the River Unto the Sea by Walter Mosley. I knew I was going to give it a 3.5, but figuring out whether to round up or down was incredibly hard for some reason.I think this book could easily be read in a couple of days by most people, if not 1. It was very quick to read, and I thought it was pretty fast-paced as well....

Accused of rape a decade ago that led to several months in prison and his subsequent dismissal from the NYPD, former cop turned P.I Joe King Oliver receives a letter in the mail from his accuser stating she was paid to set up the frame by another detective. Joe decides to follow up and meet with her in an effort to finally clear his name. At the same time, he accepts a case involving the murder of two on-duty cops by a radical black journalist. Prior to their deaths, the cops had been throwing t...

Yes, 5 stars! This book made me think. I am an author; so I compare everyone to my own writing, forgive me. First of all, I only read this book, by Walter Mosley, because the black main character of Grisham’s novel The Racketeer was reading a Walter Mosey book. By the way, The Racketeer was a very good book (see my review).Mosley, a black author, is very prolific with about 51 books published and one play. I hope none of my review sounds racist, forgive me again if it does, it was just very inte...

I belong to 52 Weeks Around the Year Group which provides a prompt a week to be matched to a book which should then be read. ;-)Week 19: A book nominated for the Edgar Award or by a Grand Master author OK, let's look into this:The Edgar Allan Poe Awards (popularly called the Edgars), named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. They honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater published or produc...

Not for me. Too many names. Names everywhere. Too many sideline stories that stops the forward motion of the story almost as if its a series of unrelated short stories stringed together with a weak transition. I gave it a hundred pages. The first chapter is a whirlwind of movement in narrative, a dope deal, a grand theft auto investigation, a tryst, one on the job (while married that does not leave the protagonist in a good light), he's accused of rape, he goes to jail, fights, segregation...and...

I am always going to read the latest Walter Mosley book as I have read every single thing he has written. His books have a special place in my heart and even though there is much that feels familiar in this one, I still loved it. It might not quite be there with the Easy Rawlins series, but Mosley still has me with his ability to create a large cast of memorable characters, even when they only have minor roles and his exceptional skills in writing and dialogue. Our central character here is Joe

Peoples have been suggesting me Mosley for a long time. Easy Rawlins series is the preferred jump in point but I went with his latest standalone because it was fresh off winning the top Edgar prize. And the general consensus was right. Mosley has got everything I like in crime fiction - great prose, complex plots, gritty setting and most importantly engaging characters.Joe Oliver was a good cop with one problem - his inability to keep it in his pants. He got framed for a rape and by the time the...

Although he ranks alongside James Lee Burke and James Ellroy in Raven’s trinity of favourite contemporary American crime authors, it is highly unusual for me to post a review of his work, as he is always read in a vacuum of serenity outside of critical reading, and imminent reviewing- my hygge zone if you will. So I’ll keep this review of Down To The River Unto The Sea as brief, and as objective as I can, but frankly Mr Mosley probably writes more interesting post-its than a substantial of self

I have read a fair number of Mosley’s books; you may have, too, starting with the Easy Rawlings novels set in Los Angeles. Beginning in the 1950s. Mosley has gradually shifted his focus from L.A. to New York City with his characters, Leonid McGill, John Woman and, now, Joe Oliver.Oliver has some similarities to other Mosley African-American protagonists. He is a detective, but in this case an ex-police detective, who had to leave the force under a cloud. He is well-read. And, he has a roving eye...

This is an interesting but ultimately disturbing noir from the Easy Rawlins author. It's quite a complex story and I'm still not sure I've understood the ending. There are two strands of story; one where King is trying to find out enough information to get a an off death row and the other strand is an investigation into the frame job that happened to himself. There's a whole cast of characters to help him on these journeys.One of my problems is I just didn't like most of them. I'm not entirely s...

Cue the mournful saxophone. Sink down into Walter Mosley’s boiled-clean prose. And get to know a new protagonist in Mosley’s ever-growing stable, former New York cop turned private detective Joe King Oliver.Yes, the cop-turned-P.I. bit is an old one in crime fiction, but King’s career switch wasn’t a matter of turning in the badge one day and hanging out a shingle the next.King spent time at Rikers—rough time. He emerges a changed man. Why was Joe King Oliver in prison? Because he was framed. An...

Walter Mosley is one of the very few writers writing in any genre that I would read without knowing anything about the book. He’s normally pretty consistent in his writing and though he typically writes similar-type mystery potboilers he uses different P.I.’s in a number of different series and they’re all well written.This one just didn’t work for me.The private investigator in this procedural is Joe King Oliver and he’s investigating duo cases simultaneously: one where he was personally framed...

Walter Mosley has long been one of my favorite authors, especially in regards to his mystery novels. The first several Easy Rawlins novels, as well as the Socrates Fortlow and the Fearless Jones series', are among my most beloved books. Unfortunately, his more recent works, while solid, haven't lived up to this legacy.That is as true here as it is with the Leonid MacGill series. While there are several interesting support characters and a nice father-daughter dynamic, the main character just did...

First person narrative of a man not in blue no more and then orange and then as a pi from Queens in a one man service, King Detective Service.There are simple truths and there are more complex truths and there is freemen in sense of no longer in prison and following his days to exonerate himself and another in a case brought to his attention.The author successfully engages the reader and walking in this protagonists shoes at odds with conflicts and the dealings with the discoveries and how and w...

Joe Oliver had once been a respected NYPD homicide detective. He had also been a convicted felon. Framed by his enemies, beaten and broken in prison, he is suddenly and unexpectedly released. None of it makes sense but Joe accepts his fate and moves on, becoming a private investigator. But, a note comes his way, from a woman who says she had been paid to help frame him. What follows is vintage Walter Mosley. A twisted and dark story that runs through the underbelly of NY and is populated with ch...

We are defined by our weaknesses.For Joe King Oliver the weakness has always been his sexual drive. It compelled him to disregard "...duties and promises, vows and common sense" and ended his career as an NYPD investigator.Disgraced and haunted by losses, his beloved job and his wife, he scrapes by as a private detective. The few joys left in his life are Aja-Denise, the teenage daughter who assists in his office, and Sergeant Gladstone Palmer, the one friend from the force who's stood by him si...

Mosley has magic on many levels. His characters are complex, worldly, and always erudite and cultured. In the Easy Rawlins books he creates an unseen (by white society) Black world of successful criminals connected like the best fictional Mafia families. 'Down the River' has some of that, but also an even more imaginative world where skin tone is not a dividing line, where white criminals partner with Black and Black bosses hire thugs of every shade. Mosley's plots are complex right to the edge

Since this is not my first roll in the hay with Mr. Walter Mosley's writing I expected exactly what I got. What I got was a gritty, police procedural of an ex-detective, Joe King Oliver, making his way in life as a Private Investigator on the mean streets of Brooklyn. Let's refer to him as King from now on.King narrates as he investigates two cases that may or may not be connected, yet are still extremely personal. His investigation into the frame-up that essentially took the life he had as a co...