0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
"I'm in trouble, Paris." Paris Minton has heard these words before. They mean only one thing: that his neck is on the line too. So when they are uttered by his lowlife cousin Ulysses S. Grant, Paris keeps the door firmly closed. With family like Ulysses — useless to everyone except his mother — who needs enemies?
But trouble always finds an open window, and when "Useless" Ulysses' mother, Three Hearts, shows up from Louisiana to look for her son, Paris has no choice but to track down his wayward cousin. Finding a con artist like Useless is easier said than done. But with the aid of his ear-to-the-ground friend Fearless Jones, Paris gets a hint that Useless may have expanded his range of enterprise to include blackmail.
Now he has disappeared, and Paris's mission is to discover whether he is hiding from his vengeful victims — or already dead. Traversing the complicated landscape of 1950s Los Angeles, where a wrong look can get a black man killed, Paris and Fearless find desperate women, secret lives, and more than one dead body along the way.
Fear of the Dark is filled with the sheer-nerve plotting and brilliant characterizations that prompted The Nation to credit Walter Mosley for "the finest detective oeuvre in American literature."
-
Creators
-
Series
-
Publisher
-
Release date
September 19, 2006 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781594835735
- File size: 217451 KB
- Duration: 07:33:01
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
Michael Boatman transports listeners to 1950s Los Angeles in Mosley's latest Fearless Jones mystery. Erudite Paris Minton--who is anything but "some negro bookseller"--is the perfect foil for Jones since he is as cowardly as the former Army assassin is fearless. As Boatman unfolds the trail of murder, blackmail, and theft, the nature of villains, racists, an evil-eyed mother, and grieving hit men, among other characters, are all hauntingly, sharply, even elegantly unveiled. An undercurrent of racism can be heard in the voices of cops, blackmailed businessmen, and Asian citizens recovering from the impact of war. Haunting period melodies mark chapter closings, reminiscent of a classic radio serial. D.P.D. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine -
July 31, 2006
Though the prose is a bit rough in spots, Mosley's third outing for L.A. bookseller Paris Minton and the intrepid Fearless Jones is as entertaining as its predecessors, Fearless Jones
and Fear Itself
. Trouble comes to Paris's door in the form of his cousin Ulysses "Useless" S. Grant IV," who needs help after getting mixed up in a scheme that has gotten totally out of hand. Despite refusing to even let Useless cross his threshold, Paris is drawn, violently, into the fray. Mosley isn't afraid to cast his characters in heroic molds and does so explicitly when Paris recalls Bullfinch's
Mythology
and muses: "Fearless was the hero, I was the hero's companion, Useless was the mischievous trickster." As in any good heroic adventure, Fearless and Paris face a variety of monsters, traps, sirens and other temptations. Mosley's talent for sketching memorable minor characters of every hue ("buttery brown," "copper," "brick," "olive with a hint of lemon") is fully evident, while his reading of the racial temperature of the 1950s is as dead-on as ever. -
August 1, 2006
The third in Mosleys Fearless Jones series (following " Fearless Jones" , 2001, and " Fear Itself" , 2003) again finds timid bookseller Paris Minton in a whole mess of trouble, courtesy of his friends but abetted by his own dogged determination to set things right. The series--named after Paris' best friend, the universally intimidating but disarmingly sweet Fearless Jones--works as a kind of point-counterpoint to Mosley's more celebrated Easy Rawlins novels, also set in South Central L.A and moving from the late 1940s into the 1960s. Paris is more bookish and less confrontational than Easy, and Fearless has a kinder heart than Easy's tough-guy buddy, Mouse, but the two pairs work like horn players trading solos in a jazz combo. This time, Paris' problems center on his cousin Ulysses (aka Useless), who has disappeared after attempting to swindle his co-conspirators in a blackmail scheme. Paris' Aunt Three Hearts--she of the legendary evil eye--demands her nephew's help in finding the wandering Ulysses, and you don't say no to Three Hearts. Mosley's signature feel for the historical moment is evident again here, but the Fearless novels seem a little more plot driven than the Rawlins'stories, which deal as much with the hero's troubled inner life as they do with societal issues. Still, this series remains an entertaining and insightful look at black life in postwar Southern California. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)
-