When the Thrill Is Gone

This review first appeared on my blog: http://www.knittingandsundries.com/2011/03/when-thrill-is-gone-by-walter-mosley....

The third in a series - now I have the previous two on my wishlist.

I like well-written thrillers. Ones where the protagonist isn't the stereotypical "tough guy with an attitude". Leonid McGill IS a tough guy, one with a revolutionary father who quoted communist manifestos at him while he was growing up, with a wife who takes lovers, and children that aren't his 'blood children' (resulting from his wife's affairs), but that he loves anyway. He's also a champion of the underdog. His secretary Mardi murdered her incestuous father to save her sister from him, and he helped Iran Shelfly, a 32-year-old ex-con that he set show more up in his prior life, gain the management of his friend Gordo's boxing gym. He's a philosopher and a thinker, with a dark background that he's striving to stay away from in his private investigation business.

But when a woman walks into his office claiming that her wealthy husband is a serial killer, having murdered two previous wives, and that he is now out to kill her, Leonid takes on a case where things and people aren't always what they seem to be. On top of that, he has to deal with his son Twill and his budding criminal enterprise, and 73-year-old Harris Vartan, an organized crime boss and a former close aid to his union-organizing father, shows up asking him to track down a mysterious William Williams.

Usually in a thriller, you don't get a lot of character development, as all of the emphasis is on the action and the suspense. This novel is a great blend of action, mystery, suspense, AND character development, which makes it perfect even for readers whose first genre isn't thrillers. AND ... even though it's the third in a series, it's a great stand-alone book; I didn't feel as though I was missing out on whatever happened in the previous two books - it just made me want to get the others even more).

Highly recommended; I loved it and couldn't put it down.

QUOTES

A good friend was dying in my eleventh-floor apartment, and my wife was having an affair with a man half her age. And those were just the devils I knew.

Tyler was the classic milksop who happens to be a billionaire but reads adventure stories so that he can imagine himself a hero in a world where deeds and not money mattered.
I liked him.

There is no forgiveness for us. For people like you and me, guilt is an indulgence.

Writing: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Plot: 5 out of 5 stars
Characters: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Reading Immersion: 4.5 out 5 stars

BOOK RATING: 4.625 out of 5 stars show less

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

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.

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

This was the first Walter Mosley book I read and I really enjoyed it! Leonid is a PI who has a client approach him about her husband wanting to kill her. Leonid suspects she is lying. While he is working on her case he has another person come into his office to hire him to find his wife. Leonid gets yet another missing person case to work while figuring out the two other cases.

This book was intense and entertaining. I enjoyed the twists and turns throughout the story and being surprised by the ending. Mosley wrote the background of boxing in an informative and fascinating way. It was interesting to read the conflict within Leonid regarding his past, his "children," his wife/girlfriend, and helping less fortunate individuals. I found show more myself marking pages that had quotes that I wanted to remember. I thoroughly enjoyed Mosley's writing style.

My only negative about this book was that there were so many characters and cases that it could get confusing at times. It was hard to remember who was with what case at times. And sometimes new characters appeared suddenly. Fortunately, Mosley explained these characters when they were introduced but it just added another person to try to remember.

Overall, this book is definitely worth the read. I will be looking into reading the first couple of Leonid McGill books and any other after this one. 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