Walter Mosley

The economy has hit the private investigator business hard, and lately, Leonid McGill is getting job offers only from the criminals he's worked so hard to leave behind. So how can he say no to the beautiful young woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash? She's an artist, she tells him, who's escaped from poverty via marriage to a rich collector who keeps her on a stipend. But she says she fears for her life, and needs Leonid's help

Ex-boxer, hard drinker, in a business that trades mostly in cash and favors, Leonid McGill is an old-school P.I. working a city that's gotten fancy all around him. And like New York City itself, McGill is turning over a new leaf, "decided to go from crooked to slightly bent." But when he calls in old markers and greases a few NYPD palms to unearth some seemingly harmless information for a high-paying client, he learns that even in this cleaned-up...

This artful and intimate meditation on legendary storyteller Toni Morrison examines her life, her work and the powerful themes she has confronted throughout her literary career.

An artful and intimate meditation on the life and works of the acclaimed novelist. From her childhood in the steel town of Lorain, Ohio to '70s-era book tours with Muhammad Ali, from the front lines with Angela Davis to her own riverfront writing room, Toni Morrison leads an assembly of her peers, critics, and colleagues on an exploration of race, America, history and the human condition as seen through the prism of her own literature.

In spite of remarkable differences, Eric and Tommy are as close as brothers. Eric, a Nordic Adonis, is graced by a seemingly endless supply of good fortune. Tommy is a lame black boy, cursed with health problems, yet he remains optimistic and strong.After tragedy rips their makeshift family apart, the lives of these boys diverge astonishingly: Eric, the golden youth, is given everything but trusts nothing; Tommy, motherless and impoverished, has nothing,...