Summary
"Paris Minton is minding his own business - a small used-book store of which he is the proud proprietor - when a beautiful woman named Elana Love walks in and asks a few questions. Within the next twenty-four hours, Paris has been beaten up, made love to, shot at, and robbed, and his bookstore has been burned to the ground. He's in so much trouble he has no choice but to get his friend Fearless Jones out of jail to help." "Fearless Jones is an army veteran, a man who is proud of his accomplishments during World War II and refuses to step into the background now that the war is over. Violence dogs Fearless's every step, and Paris has tried to keep his distance. But there's no friend like the one you need." "The two set out to find the elusive Elana Love, and every step leads them deeper into a bewildering vortex of money and betrayal. Their questions bring out a ruthless and racist cop, a gang of vicious excons, and an elderly Jewish woman who is as determined to help the two friends as others are to harm them. These two black men in 1950s Los Angeles have few rights, little money, and no recourse under attack. But they have their friends, their wits, and their knowledge of the way the world really works to help them prevail."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.
Publishers Weekly Review
HAbandoning the voice of his premier creation, Easy Rawlins, Mosley mines a new shaft of 1950s Los Angeles with a hero who combines the principles of Easy with the deadliness of Ray "Mouse" Alexander. The result is a violent, heroic and classic piece of noir fiction. Narrator Paris Minton is an appealing figure an easygoing black man for whom the written word is salvation and whose nameless used bookstore in Watts is paradise. Then the beautiful Elana Love enters his store and brings with her more trouble than Paris has ever seen enough trouble that Paris knows his only hope is his friend Fearless Jones. A former soldier, Jones is a riveting new creation. He's a man of both principle and action with an innate sense of justice and as his name makes clear, he's afraid of nothing. The novel rips along with a hunt for the girl and a race among competing factions to find a missing bond that's the key to a fortune. For the black characters it's a desperate struggle to stay alive in a white world where the deck is stacked. One sly reference tells the reader we're still in the same world and time inhabited by Easy Rawlins, and that Fearless and Mouse are equally "bad." But Fearless is also a knight-errant and hopefully destined for further adventures as fine as this one. (June 5)Forecast: With a 20-city author tour and major advertising, Mosley's first thriller since 1996's A Little Yellow Dog is sure to generate lots of interest and sales.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc.
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