Been Wrong So Long It Looks Right – Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley is absolutely a favorite writer of mine. I’ve been an Easy Rawlins and Fearless Jones Fan forever. So, when Joe “King” Oliver showed up in my to be read pile in 2017, I gave him a whirl and I was not disappointed. But then King took a long time to appear again. Still, Walter Mosley does not ever disappoint and I saw King again just in 2023 and lo and behold he’s back.

If you don’t know King, his back story is that he was a NYC police detective and great at his job, but he got set up on false charges, served time on Rikers Island and came out with a scar down one cheek and no job. He opened a detective agency. King has been estranged from his father, Chief, since Chief went to prison for a holdup for shooting/wounding two men.Soon after Chief went to jail, King’s mother had a breakdown and ended up in a mental institution where she died. This story opens with a visit from King’s grandmother, Chief’s mother. Brenda is old and needs surgery and she wants King to find Chief. Isn’t he in prison, you may ask?

Well, now I can’t tell you any more of the story at all, but as you know if you have read one or more Walter Mosley books, they are character driven and Been Wrong is not going to disappoint you. King connects with his father’s old friends, people he met in prison, one of the guys Chief shot and many of his former girlfriends. At one location, he meets a darling little girl, age six, with a big voice. At another, the lovely adult daughter of one of his dad’s exes who is trapped in a problematic relationship. His daughter Aja, a young woman, works for him but wants more detection responsibilities. His grandmother is married to the richest man in the world, so that guys’ “house” is itself a character. Throw in the couple of cops who are still friends. A woman whose husband wants to kill her and retrieve their 9 year old daughter that she took to New York and the various crazies the husband hired. King is a womanizer but ethical so he only “falls in love” three or four times in this story. And then there are Melquarth and Oli. If you read the other Kind Oliver novels, you know that Melquarth is beyond certifiable and for some reason he is actually in a relationship of sorts with Oli. A book just about them would be fun. And I could go on. So, even avoiding spoilers, I can show you how wildly varied and fulfilling it is to have this particular Walter Mosley novel out for all to enjoy.

He never disappoints. No exception. Read Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right!