Trouble Is What I Do by Walter Mosley

Every genre has a continuum: some works are off at one end, some way out the other way, and most of them in clusters scattered around in the middle. There may be more than one continuum, especially in a big, complex, older genre that's had time to diversify and grow, but there's always at least one.

Think of magic vs. technology in fantasika, professional vs. amateur detectives in mystery, sweet vs. hot in romance.

There's also a continuum of...well, call it power or ability or connections or scope or resources. A hero can be no one, with nothing to call upon, or can be massively well-connected, with top experts on speed-dial, a crew of valuable assistants, and more esoteric knowledge than Wikipedia.

Leonid McGill, the private detective that narrates a series of books by Walter Mosley, is way the hell out on the latter side of the continuum - at least by the point of Trouble Is What I Do, Mosley's short 2020 novel. Here, he takes a job for no pay and racks up costs that must be at least six figures to do it, bringing in world-class assassins, the head of a swanky private hospital, and several other deeply-knowledgeable and well-connected experts to achieve his ends.

The only thing I can compare it to, possibly because my reading in mystery is less broad than it used to be and also a couple of decades out of date, is Robert Parker's Spenser novels, which equally feature a detective who is functionally bulletproof and possessed of a Rolodex that presidents would be in awe of. McGill is just as overpowered and immediately able to handle any situation as Spenser; their main difference (other than skin color) is that McGill has a massively self-doubting internal narration, and Spenser never had time for anything that slows down the action like that.

Anyway, in the manner of the overpowered mystery, McGill is hired by someone world-famous - nonagenarian bluesman Philip "Catfish" Worry - to do something dangerous and elegant involving someone else world-famous, a racist right-wing billionaire and his about-to-be-married debutante daughter.

The secret, of course, is that the billionaire is the secret son of the bluesman, and McGill is entrusted with a decades-old letter from the billionaire's mother to give to the debutante explaining her Black heritage. Handing a letter to someone is usually pretty simple, but Trouble is kept from being a drabble by the fact that Catfish tried to talk to the billionaire, not long ago, and got the bum's rush for his troubles - which had put the entire circle of the billionaire and his family on lockdown until at least the wedding.

Have I mentioned the billionaire is in close with a crime boss? Because of course he is. But McGill's best buddies include not one but two world-class assassins - possibly so he can beat Spencer's compadre Hawk by volume - so he's got that covered.

This is a short book. It's largely taken up with McGill's thoughts - both on race and history and secrets, obviously, and on his own flaws and foibles that never actually slow down any of the action or activity - and with his connecting to that wide panoply of rich and/or powerful and/or accomplished and/or skilled close friends, all in the aim of getting that one letter to that one young woman. Actually, I take it back: there's also a fair bit of digression and flashback, especially in the first half, where Mosley either replays some greatest hits from earlier novels in the series or newly explains a whole lot of McGill's connections.

This is also a book, like a lot of Mosley's work, that aims to speak about the experience of race in America - in this case, I guess "passing," and what it means to pass without knowing that you're doing it. I'll gesture at that rather then engaging deeply; I'm in no position to critique Mosley on anything in that area, though I will say it comes across a bit glib and cartoonish in the context of this short, quick book with so much else that is flashy and larger than life.

All that is, frankly, way too much to balance on the slender reed of a plot here. I like Mosley's work, but he's never been a subtle writer, and he's possibly even less subtle here than usual. I do have a sneaking suspicion that Mosley's audience doesn't want subtle, so I guess that's just fine. I think the earlier, longer books in this series have some more nuance to them - I hope they do, at least; this kind of thing could be exhausting extended over 300+ pages - so maybe I need to check those out.