Fear of the Dark (Fearless Jones Novel, No.3)

by Walter Mosley

Hardcover, 2006

Call number

MYST MOS

Publication

Little, Brown and Company (2006), Edition: 1, 320 pages

Description

"'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 low-life 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's 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."--Jacket.… (more)

Subjects

African American men Fiction

Booksellers and bookselling Fiction

Jones, Fearless (Fictitious character) Fiction

Los Angeles (Calif.) Fiction

Minton, Paris (Fictitious character) Fiction

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Noir fiction

Private investigators California Los Angeles Fiction

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User reviews

LibraryThing member RoseCityReader

Although this is called “a Fearless Jones” novel, Fear of the Dark is really a book about Fearless’s friend, Paris Minton. Minton is a used book dealer and amateur sleuth in 1950s Los Angeles. His cousin, “Useless” S. Grant, pulls him into a mystery that reaches from the black community

of post-WWII Watts to the white world of moneyed institutions. The book is chock-a-block with interesting characters with clever nicknames, big-finned American cars, jazz clubs, and pool halls.

Sound familiar? It is the basic recipe for Moseley’s Easy Rawlins series. Unfortunately, while the Rawlins series was snappy and fresh, Fear of the Dark is a stale rehash. It never really takes off, it didn’t keep my attention, and Minton’s digressions about the books he’s reading (all MAJOR literary classics) come off as barely-relevant intellectual showmanship.

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LibraryThing member JFBallenger

This book has all of the excellent qualities any fan of Walter Mosley's masterful noir detective fiction have come to expect -- taut pacing and plot, and sly social commentary on the realities of being black in modern America, and above all compelling characterization. Here the timid intellectual

Paris Minton and his the courageous, simple virtue of Fearless Jones continues Mosley's exploration of the virtues and meaning of valor, honor and loyalty.

That said, this is far from his strongest work overall and a bit of a comedown after his two previous excellent books in the Fearless Jones series. The main problem for me was that the the book -- unlike most of Mosley' detective fiction -- took a while to really get ontrack. But on p. 36, when Paris Minton finds himself in the chilling situation that gives the book its title. One of the creepiest scenes in detective fiction I think.

My other reservation is about the new character the book also introduces -- the African-American private detective Whisper Natly. This is the first African-American character in Mosley's detective oeuvre who is officially a detective. There is clearly a potential for Natley to become a regular in the Fearless Jones series, or perhaps Mosley is contemplating building a new series around him. A fuller characterization will probably make Natly as intriguing as Mosley's other characters, but at this point his presence seems a bit strained and distracting.

On the whole, followers of the Minton/Jones series will not want to miss this book. Newcomers to Mosley or this series should start with some of his earlier books.

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LibraryThing member 1greenprof

Walter Mosley writes a barn-burner of a novel! This is my first Mosley, and certainly won't be my last. I loved the setting...gritty Los Angeles. I loved the character development...the awkward, reticent bookstore owner, who happened to be a "enriched" lothario, the bail bondsman and his competent

assistant. The characters were rich, the women strong...and sometimes deadly. Throw in some smoky jazz, some blackmailed cheaters, some crazy relatives, and a good mystery, and you have a winning formula...good job, I'll be back!

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LibraryThing member johnwbeha

till working my way through a large pile of Mosley's that I inherited. I read one every few months and am always pleasantly surprised by the continuing excellence of his writing. To me, his strength lies in his characterisation and that is particularly true of this book. Very enjoyable!

LibraryThing member franoscar

Spoiler Alert, maybe.
This book holds together better than the previous book. I'm glad I read it. Paris shows some growth/change. Still the stereotypes wear you down. I wonder if Mosley had a whole plot in his head, with a vision of what the future will be, of where Paris is now. I don't know if the

first book sets the current time.

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