When the Thrill Is Gone

I don’t even like noir mysteries. But Mosley is such a darn good writer I can’t resist his books anyway.

McGill has some clients who get him into near-death scrapes, but the real emphasis in this book is on fathers and sons – McGill and his Communist father, and McGill and his stepsons. And it’s about a man, who at the age of fifty, finally figures out what he wants to do with his life.

Mosley’s reputation as a literary artist who happens to write mysteries is substantiated in this book by little flights of transcendent prose such as this, when McGill is thinking about how good it is to be on his own at three in the afternoon…

"…when most other workers are sitting in cubicles, dreaming of retirement, praying for Saturday, or show more finding themselves crammed-in down underground on subway cars, hurtling toward destinations they never bargained for.”

Or this, when he was watching a woman cook breakfast for him:

"‘What?’ she asked when I smiled at my flittery, yellow butterfly of a heart.”

Or the words from a witness, that inadvertently cause McGill to have an epiphany about what drove his father:

"I gave my children the kind of dreams they could live by, but dreams are like oceans, Mr. McGill. If they’re worth a damn they’re bigger than the dreamer, and sometimes, when the one dreaming wants to be as big as what they imagine, the wave pulls ‘em down.”

In this book, the meditations of the protagonist are mostly turned inward rather than focusing on the world outside himself, so it is a bit more melancholy than Mosley’s usual fare, but this introspection also lends more literary notes to the story.

Evaluation: When the Thrill is Gone is the third book in the Leonid McGill detective series, but can be read as a standalone book. If you like noir mysteries, you will like this solid contribution to that genre. If you appreciate lyric prose, you will like this book even if you don’t like noir mysteries. Walter Mosley is an author who can and should be savored on a number of levels.

Rating: 4/5 show less

When Winston Churchill spoke of, "a riddle wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma", he might well have been describing Walter Mosley's fictional detective, Leonid McGill. Everyone keeps secrets from him. Everyone tells him lies or half truths. His dad quoted him communist manifesto instead of reading him bedtime stories in the relatively few years he was around. He was last seen just before leaving his wife and young Leonid, to go fight in some South American revolution. Leonid knows his wife is seeing another man, but it seems to be improving her self image. Her attitude towards Leonid and her kids is getting better. At the office where McGill trys to run his detective business in a down economy, his clients are few and far between. show more So when a beautiful woman comes in telling him that she needs protection from her husband who may be out to kill her, he takes it with a grain of salt and a hand full of cash. His initial investigation reveals she is not who she said she was. Leonid, however, has to rethink everything when her body turns up colder than the cash she gave him. Riddles, puzzles, enigmas. You need to be open to all the clues if you want to stay on top of this one. Be prepared, the more Walter Mosley you read, the more you will want to read. This book provided for review by the well read folks at Shelf Awareness and Riverhead Books show less

This is the third entry in Mosley's Leonid McGill series. McGill is a PI with lots of connections in the deep underworld; people owe him favors, but other people would be happy to see him gone, and the police are always looking for a reason to roust him, or better yet, put him away for good. He's smart, he's cool (mostly), and he's determined to stay out of jail, and on the righteous path as he sees it. He is also trying very hard to save his youngest child from the mistakes of his own youth, but the boy is scary smart and scared of nothing. I'd hate to live in McGill's world, but if I ever found myself there I would certainly want him looking out for me. Good gritty noir.

I first encountered Walter Mosley when he gave a lecture for the Smithsonian's Mystery Writer Lecture Series in the early 80's. In preparation for that I read Devil in a Blue Dress. That reading, and the live interview with him, have led me to read every book he has written. His style is so unique. I've never come across any other writer who can use language in such a literate, coarse, and descriptive way. It defies my attempt to describe.

This book is another step along his path of getting better with every book he writes. The ending, in particular, was unexpected but very rewarding for those who have read the previous Leonid McGill novels.

The last thing I need is another mystery writer whose series I want to read, but dang it, I've gone and done it again, found an author whose writing I thoroughly enjoy. When the Thrill is Gone was my first book by this author even though it is the third in his series about PI Leonid McGill. Now I have to go back and read the first two, and maybe other novels by Mosley.

Leonid is a hard-boiled detective, not always right with the law. Okay, almost never right with the law. And he used to be even worse – I've gotta find out those details. Anyway, a very rich woman comes to him because she thinks her husband is going to kill her; two former wives are now dead and he is behaving oddly. But...the woman's dress and demeanor don't quite seem show more right for her wealth. So what is really going on?

The book is heavy on the testosterone, lots of tough guys doing tough things, but the violence isn't overly gruesome. The characters are interesting and the plot has enough turns to keep me interested. The characters aren't black and white, but all shades of good and bad. McGill's relationship with his wife is especially interesting. For me, the book had just the right amount of description. In describing the characters, Mosley usually described their skin color, no two being alike. “Her color was that of maple syrup in a glass jar, but in shadow.” I loved that. All in all, a great read for the genre.

I was given an uncorrected proof of the book by the publisher, very much appreciated. show less

Life can get complicated for an ex-boxer with a murky past, a violent temper, and dangerous friends but Leonid McGill is used to complicated. His P.I. business has been slow and his personal life is a mess. His best friend and mentor is dying in his spare bedroom. His wife is cheating on him and his girlfriend isn't returning his calls. To make matters worse, one of his sons has run off to Paris chasing a girl who's nothing but trouble and the other son, his favorite, is running straight into the arms of the law. When a beautiful woman with a stack of cash, a hard-luck story, and a smile walks into his office Leonid should have seen trouble coming from a mile away but he just can't help playing the sap. It is a good thing Leonid McGill show more can turn almost any situation to his advantage. And it is a very good thing that Walter Mosley can turn any tough guy in to a touching hero. The two of them make for a wonderfully deadly combination. - Recommended show less

Leon McGill returns in this latest offering from Walter Mosley to find himself in a case where nothing is what it seems, including his client.

When Chrystal Tyler shows up in McGill's office, claiming to be afraid that her billionaire husband may be about to kill her, Leonid is intrigued by her story, and the pile of cash Chrystal places on his desk. Two previous wives are dead, and Chrystal is convinced that they died simply because her husband willed it to be. An agreement is struck, and McGill begins to investigate, knowing that any previous means of death is almost certainly much more mundane - and human - than described. But investigating a man with such power isn't easy, and McGill finds one roadblock after another. When it turns show more out that even his client isn't what she purported to be, he faces a tangled, twisted path, beset by danger, and even some personal revelation.

Leonid McGill is a colorful, likable, even admirable character, who has the ability to see through the charades most of us live, right into the core. His checkered background and past transgressions, while forever shaping his identity, also have lent him w kind of street-level wisdom that is, in many ways, profound. I was impressed by him. You may be, too. show less