Walter Mosley, "one of crime fiction's brightest stars" (People), returns to mysteries at last-with a dazzling new thriller set in the deadly back alleys of 1950s L.A.... Bookshop owner Paris Minton is minding his own business when a brief encounter with a beautiful stranger gets him beaten, shot at, robbed, and then burned out of store and home. Paris needs help but his secret weapon-brave, reckless WWII hero Fearless Jones-is in jail. Vowing to dish out some heavy justice, Paris plots to get Jones back on the street. But when these two men come together, they'll find themselves trapped in a bewildering vortex of sex, money, and murder-and a dicey endgame that's littered with dangerous players...



SUMMARY: In a blockbuster new action thriller by master novelist Walter Mosley, "one of America's best mystery writers" (New York Times), bookstore owner Paris Minton and the deadliest man in L.A.-Fearless Jones-are back on the streets of 1950s Watts. FEAR ITSELF Mild-mannered Paris Minton is delivered a pile of trouble when Fearless Jones shows up with a simple request: help find a beautiful woman's husband. Lending a hand gets him hit upside the head, hogtied, kidnapped, and threatened with a gun the size of a cannon. Now he's wondering whom he should fear more: the people he's looking for or the people he's working for. Tangled up with cops, rival millionaires, several corpses, and one of L.A.'s wealthiest women, Paris Minton is in a corner-and not even his invincible friend Fearless can save him.



When his cousin Ulysses S. Grant IV comes knocking, Paris Minton would rather keep the door shut, because "Useless" is a snake who brings bad luck wherever he goes. But trouble always finds an open window, and soon there's a man murdered on his bookshop floor, evidence of blackmail is discovered, and Useless has vanished. To get out of this mess, Paris turns to his solid-hearted but quick-fisted friend Fearless Jones. Traversing the complex landscape of 1950s Los Angeles, where a wrong look can get a black man killed, Paris and Fearless find deperate women, secret lives--and more than one dead body.