Cannonball Read 15

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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February Leftovers 2022

Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley

Sleeping With Strangers by Eric Jerome Dickey

The Trees by Percival Everett

One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Democracy by Carol Anderson

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These are my February leftovers, i.e. books that I read but didn’t give a full review either cuz I didn’t have time or didn’t have much to say. There are fewer than normal this month because Black Reconstruction by W.E.B. DuBois took up most of my time. Trouble Is What I Do **** Another good entry in the Leonid McGill series. It’s short and that streamlines the story more than its predecessors. I still read these as if Leonid is dead and NYC is his purgatory where […]

I Wonder Indeed

And Sometimes I Wonder About You by Walter Mosley

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I understand that as readers, we bring our own perceptions and biases to books in ways authors do not intend. Such is the exchange between creator and those indulging their creation. I genuinely try to connect with what writers are saying in books despite my own bullcrap. I hate it when readers/reviewers talk about reading or watching something and say “I’m just going to pretend its this instead.” But with Walter Mosley’s Leonid McGill series, I can’t help it. In the early aughts, Mosley turned […]

Vacation Reading

All I Did Was Shoot My Man by Walter Mosley

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka

The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos

Pickup At Union Station by Gary Reilly

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I got some great reading done while I was on vacation this past week. No knockouts but a nice range of good-to-good-enough books. Didn’t have time or resources to catalogue each individually so I’ll do small reviews of every book here. All I Did Was Shoot My Man I continue to be pleasantly mystified by Walter Mosley’s Leonid McGill series. These books are so odd, so transgressive considering what else is out there. He clearly has a gift for this kind of writing. The plot […]

A Different Type

When The Thrill Is Gone by Walter Mosley

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Walter Mosley’s Leonid McGill books are different than the standard issue PI fare. They’re different than his own Easy Rawlins ones. They’re hardboiled but they’re also…I don’t know. There’s a lot going on. You go headfirst into this world but Mosley refuses to let you see it all. The way he reveals things and keeps you guessing. These books are so transgressive against the typical PI fare. I think that’s because Leonid McGill isn’t really a private eye. I mean, I guess he is in […]

Your Enemies Closer

Known to Evil by Walter Mosley

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Walter Mosley is such a versatile writer. While most famous for his Easy Rawlins mystery series, he’s worked in just about every genre one can think of: noir, hardboiled, scifi, fictional bio. The guy can do it all. The Leonid McGill series is the first series of his I’ve ventured from Easy Rawlins in his oeuvre. And it’s like they were written by two different people. Mosley got his writing start in the 80s. His books would get progressively better. As much as I enjoy Devil […]

Tripping the Light Fantastique

The Long Fall by Walter Mosley

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I’ve been going through Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series the last few years and mostly enjoying it. He’s a good writer with a solid sense of time (post-WWII Los Angeles), a compelling character, and a point-of-view that many readers don’t get from “mainstream” (re: dominantly white) mystery writers. I hadn’t thought much of reading his Leonid McGill series, which is basically Easy Rawlins set in New York in contemporary times. But as I’ve been on a big New York City reading kick lately, I figured […]



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