Two More 2009 Big Guns

Continuing to keep you abreast of what books are likely to appear on next year’s “10 best” lists, here are a pair of likely candidates, both of them due out in March 2009.

The Long Fall, by Walter Mosley, starts a new series about a New York private eye named Leonid McGill--Mosley’s first contemporary series and his first set in New York, where he has lived for 30 years. McGill is, according to his creator, “a classic noir detective, an old-school character, ex-boxer, hard drinker, in a business that trades mostly in cash and favors in a city that has gotten fancy all around him.” Raised as a red-diaper baby by his communist father, Leonid also had a great-grandfather who was a slave master from Scotland. “You know, the black man’s family tree is mostly root. Whatever you see aboveground is only a hint at the real story.” McGill has done his share of dirty deeds to pay the rent, but like New York City he now wants to clean up his act. I can see Laurence Fishburne in the movie already.

Bruno, Chief of Police, by Martin Walker, is something else again, a scenic, sharply written series debut about the head cop in a small village in the Dordogne region of France. UK critics have already called this novel a perfect blend of Peter Mayle and Alexander McCall Smith. I’d like to add the late, much-missed Magdalen Nabb, author of the Marshal Guarnaccia books, to that particular mix. What a wonderful combination of a gorgeous setting, a truly amazing plot, and a strong series lead.