Review: Fearless Jones

Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Fearless Jones” is more, in this first episode of Mosley’s series, the “Paris Minton” show. Here, Mosley divides his normal heroic non-detective detective into two people, one, Minton, representing brains, and the other, Jones, representing brawn. Minton, a meek bookseller with occasional brushes with danger and intrigue, teams with friend Jones, former Army hero and muscle-bound female attractor, to deal with an odd story of artwork stolen by Nazis morphed into a bearer bond that touches more hands than a retail politician at a chicken dinner. The plot is extremely convoluted, and the body count is quite high for a mystery. And much of the action occurs offstage, with our hero, Minton, being advised of the plot twists in a long monologue at the end of the book. Despite those weaknesses and excessive splashes of blood, the characters are interesting, as is Mosley’s sense of time and place, and I’m likely to continue reading the series as I already have acquired the two follow-on books on audio. Given the naming convention of the series, focusing on the Fearless Jones character, I would expect to see Jones become more of a lead in these upcoming episodes. Otherwise, I am kind of lukewarm to this.

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