The Long Fall
Walter Mosley, 2009
Little, Brown & Co.
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451230256
Summary
His name is etched on the door of his Manhattan office: LEONID McGILL—PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.
It's a name that takes a little explaining, but he's used to it. "Daddy was a communist and great-great-Granddaddy was a slave master from Scotland. You know, the black man's family tree is mostly root. Whatever you see above ground is only a hint at the real story."
Ex-boxer, hard drinker, in a business that trades mostly in cash and favors: McGill's an old-school P.I. working a city that's gotten fancy all around him. Fancy or not, he has always managed to get by—keep a roof over the head of his wife and kids, and still manage a little fun on the side—mostly because he's never been above taking a shady job for a quick buck.
But like the city itself, McGill is turning over a new leaf, "decided to go from crooked to slightly bent."
New York City in the twenty-first century is a city full of secrets—and still a place that reacts when you know where to poke and which string to pull. (From the publisher.)