Book Reviews
Mosley, best known for his gritty Easy Rawlins mysteries, explores cosmic questions of justice and redemption in this odd tale of Tempest Landry, a black man shot dead by police when they thought he was pulling a gun. Landry throws the afterlife into turmoil by refusing to accept St. Peter's judgment that he must spend eternity in Hell. Three years after his death, Landry is returned to Manhattan, with a new face and an angel named Joshua to watch over him. As Landry sets up one morally complex situation after another, Joshua engages him in discussions of situational ethics, trying to get Landry to accept that he is a sinner and deserves damnation. Eventually, Landry recruits Satan himself in his cause. The interesting concept is not matched by its execution, but some readers may find Landry a humorous creation and appreciate his eventual solution to his dilemma.
Publishers Weekly
Tempest Landry, a quick-witted African American resident of Harlem, NY, is walking home when a case of mistaken identity leads to his being shot by police. He finds himself standing in line at the gates of heaven waiting to talk to Saint Peter, who reviews his past transgressions and finds him wanting. Tempest is denied entry into heaven and ordered to hell. Believing his "sins" justified and heaven refusing to see the full truth, Tempest refuses to go and challenges Saint Peter to prove to him that he is a sinner. And so begins Tempest's return to Earth with a denizen of heaven, Joshua Angel, to convince Tempest of Saint Peter's edict. Of course, the devil wants Tempest's soul and is scheming to use Tempest to destroy heaven. In a salute to Langston Hughes's Jesse B. Semple stories, Mosley, best-known for his Easy Rawlins mystery series, has written a humorous, thought-provoking, and accessible literary tale of the concept and treatment of sin and sinners in contemporary times. Recommended for popular fiction and African American fiction collections.
Joy St. John - Library Journal
Tempest Landry, a black man gunned down by white cops in Harlem, finds himself judged by St. Peter at heaven’s gate—and disputes the result.... Though the novel sometimes feels thrown together, Mosley is enough of a pro to make this talky allegory fun and even funny—it picks up steam with the arrival of a devilish white man named Basel Bob—but less message-specific fiction might have been more interesting, and pure nonfiction might have been meatier. Mosley is a big name, but his ever-increasing output means that even loyal fans must choose their favorite genres in his ever-growing oeuvre. —Keir Graff
Booklist
Versatile Mosley tells the story of a black man dead before his time who shakes up the divine order by refusing his condemnation to Hell. Tempest Landry is walking up Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Harlem, minding his own business, when a police officer takes him for an armed robber he's pursuing and shoots him dead. According to St. Peter, Tempest deserves eternal damnation not because of the robbery-the heavenly recorder doesn't make such errors-but because he stabbed a schoolboy who was about to shoot him, stole church funds to buy his sick aunt groceries and told lies that sent an incorrigible rapist and killer to prison for a crime he didn't commit. When Tempest respectfully dissents, Peter sees no alternative to sending him back to earth, accompanied by a heavenly accountant who takes the name Joshua Angel, until he accepts the divine judgment. Back in Harlem, however, Tempest is no more pliable than he was at the gates of Heaven. In a series of brief chapters, he keeps remonstrating with Angel that although he may not be perfect, he hasn't done anything all that bad either. Each chapter is launched by a new narrative premise: Tempest finds that his wife has taken up with another man; Tempest attends the funeral of an ancient family friend; Angel finds himself falling for a woman Tempest has introduced him to; the Devil, in the form of someone named Bob, appears and demands Tempest's soul. But the core of the tale is the anti-catechism that emerges from the dialogues between man and angel. For all the audacity of his imagination, Mosley (Blonde Faith, 2007, etc.) is no theologian. He seems unaware of either the centuries of catechetical literature or the dozens of deal-with-the-devil stories that precede his own entry. A classic case of overreaching, though one that's often moving and provoking.
Kirkus Reviews