Trouble Is What I Do

In MWA Grand Master Mosley’s easy-reading sixth Leonid McGill mystery (after 2015’s And Sometimes I Wonder About You), the PI moseys around contemporary New York City from one repartee-filled scene to another. Black blues player Catfish Worry wants McGill to get a message to his granddaughter, who passes as white. Her prosperous father, Charles Sterman, who’s Catfish’s son, also passes, yet is a virulent racist. No less than the deadly Ernie Eckles (aka the Mississippi Assassin) sent him McGill’s way. A bottle of legendarily aged moonshine is included as introduction and payment. Often undercover, McGill thinks, “And on those rare occasions I have been revealed, I was still the most dangerous man in the room.” Not here, with his pal Hush (“ex-assassin extraordinaire”) and Eckles in the mix: “The Mississippi Assassin could kill Sternman right then, and there wasn’t a man in the room who could stop him—with maybe the exception of Hush.” If this were a spaghetti western, it would be all staring and no gunplay, to the dismay of action fans. Some readers may be disappointed that the violent pay-off at the end takes place way offstage. Agent: Gloria Loomis, Watkins Loomis. (Feb.)