A new series from Walter Mosley, huzzah! Well, it's new to me. Mosley's been at the Leonid McGill series since 2009, about 20 years after he started putting out his popular Easy Rawlins books. But instead of rewinding time back to the race-war years of 1960s Los Angeles, The Long Fall takes us on a literary drive-by of a contemporary day-in-the-life of a New York City private investigator. Leonid McGill, a 50 year old bruiser with a brain, must weave together a number of loose threads, some more...

4.5 starsThis book just sucked me into the story. It is book one in the series. The blurb describes Leonid McGill as "a black man with a funny name." Leonid is a private eye in New York city with a reputation for being willing to do illegal things for the right price. He once framed a man for murder. But now he wants to go legit. He desperately needs money for his rent. Facing eviction, he agrees to find 4 men for a mysterious client. But then they start dying and he risks his life to find out w...

Mosley introduces here PI Leonid McGill, a short, broad, and boxer-tough black fifty-something, who, after a back-story crisis, is trying to lighten the shade of his moral ambiguity, and is easy to root for. He has a few laughs tossing out character names like Norman Fell and Thom Watson. There are plenty of characters here, so be prepared to keep a scorecard. Mosley has moved from mid-twentieth-century LA to twenty-first-century New York City, but his work retains the atmosphere one expects. Th...

You think you got problems? Just be glad you’re not Leonid McGill. Poor McGill is a private detective who used to specialize in blackmail and framing people to let others off the hook, but now he’s trying to turn over a new leaf and only take legitimate jobs. Staying on the straight and narrow isn’t easy. What should have been a simple case of finding four men takes a nasty turn when they start turning up dead. Leonid was used to find the guys so they could be murdered, and he looks to be next o...

After finishing The Long Fall by Walter Mosley—the first of his books that I've read—it's hard to believe it's taken me this long to get there. The Long Fall is a hard-boiled private detective novel told with style and depth of character I just never see in the periodic dipping of my toe into the genre.As with a lot of fictional private eyes, Leonid McGill is a guy dealing with a tough personal life and never quite able to get away from his past. Typically, though, this seems to manifest as a gu...

This is the first of what is now a 6 book series featuring PI Leonid McGill. McGill, has taken some nasty work (framing spouses, politicians, helping criminals) and now middle aged, is trying to go legit. This story is a case he takes (he needs the money) in the hope that it will be the last of his unseemly work. Leonid McGill’s portrait unfolds through his own first person narrative. He is a boxer who never went pro; but the skill is useful in his current profession. His marriage is a mistake h...

Four cheers for "The Long Fall". This was good reading. As I stated in one my status updates..there is really not much that I didn't like about this book. It's been a good long time since I read a Walter Mosley book. It's been so long that I think I technically forgot about Walter. I'm embarrassed to say because I know he is a great and heralded writer and his books are good. I think to be honest I noticed one of his books on someone's "to read" list and it jarred my memory. I'm glad I was ab

Great stuff. My proper review is here: http://patricksherriff.com/2019/09/11...

Walter Mosley's new P.I. series debuts with this title set in New York City in 2008. Leonid McGill is an ex-boxer with a family who has decided to turn over a new leaf. He's done with his rough-and-tumble past. Great minor characters, including "Hush" who reminds me of Mouse. Enjoyed the dream sequences and back story woven into the narrative. This series will get better in the subsequent titles.

3.5 stars. Definitely better than I thought.

I only came across Walter Mosley earlier this year, quickly reading and falling in love with the first couple of Easy Rawlins stories. The Long Fall is my first non Rawlins story I've read and I am equally impressed with the protagonist of this series: PI Leonid McGill. This time the story is set in 2008 on the eve of the ascension of Barack Obama. It's New York and McGill has recently undergone an epiphany. He no longer wants to be the PI on call to shady characters whose employment leads invar...

I enjoyed Mosley's Easy Rawlins books. Now let's see what Leonid McGill is all about.I'm about half-way through, and thoroughly confused, but enjoying the read. There are two ways to read a book like this. One way, the frustrating way, is to keep turning back to refresh your mind about characters you may have met 50 pages ago. The other way is just to go with the story, confident that Mosley will, sooner or later, make all clear. Guess which I have chosen?Of course the pieces came together in th...

Looking forward to the second Leonid book asap. Simple as ABC, this is a good read.A- plenty of actionB- Big, Bad with mad Boxing skills (and, well, he's Black)C- Conflicts, some complex, Contacts on the wrong side of the lawD-Deadpan Delivery, and yes...DeathIt's 2008 New York, Leonid has some challenging client requests as PI, and there is big money behind the plans to kill a certain circle of people.Interesting introduction to a reformed man who "aims" not to kill.

I've read a couple of Mosley's Easy Rawlins books over the years -- I loved Devil in a Blue Dress, which is the one just about everyone's read, and quite enjoyed the other one, title now forgotten -- so I was enticed when I tripped over a copy of The Long Fall by the prospect of a new Mosley detective, PI Leonid McGill, and a new Mosley setting, present-day New York.And what a lucky discovery it has been. I'm not much of a one for series novels, but I may very well delve further into the Leonid

I enjoyed my first Walter Mosley Novel. I'm looking forward to reading more in this series. The pace of the story was good. Overall, Leonid's tale was satisfying. I wouldn't call it groundbreaking, but it was satisfying and good enough for me to continue reading. I enjoyed the way the author crafted the story. The short chapters also makes the pace seem faster. I think I'm going to try the Easy Rawlins series next before I move on in this series.

30 or so pages into Mosley's first tale featuring Leonid McGill, Private Investigator, and I was preparing myself to be dissapointed. McGill obviously didn't share the same moral high ground as Mosley's most famous character but it was feeling a little like "Easy Rawlins on the East Coast." I was even preparing to forgive the author for the lack of originality. I knew he'd moved from the familiar surroundings of Los Angeles to New York himself. It wouldn't make sense for Easy to move back East a...

My first Leonid McGill, won't be my last!

One of the major joys of reading Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins books is dropping oneself into the environment of the story, not just the place, but the people who inhabit the story's space. The first book of the new series, The Long Fall, is set in today's New York City, but most of the action takes place inside office buildings, apartments, and non-descript clubs. There is no feel for the streets of this huge city. The minor characters, with a couple of exceptions, aren't individualistic enough

Mosley is that rare author who can be so incredibly subtle when he's right up in your face. I love his new character, Leonid (so named by a rabidly communist father), who is physically and mentally tough but oh so tender when it comes to his loved ones. I like that he has a disfunctional marriage but a functional love life. Lots of dichotemies in this fast-moving story.

Apparently Walter Mosley was not satisfied to create one of the truly great series detective characters, Easy Rawlins. Proving with little effort his skills as a novelist who writes mysteries, Mosley now gives us a second detective, Leonid McGill. To shake things up McGill lives in New York in the present day (as opposed to Easy, who worked in Los Angeles of the mid-20th century). Easy has a complicated personal life and has never been the most upright citizen. Now, though he has "decided to go