Two More 2009 Big Guns

Continuing to keep you abreast of what looks to be on most Ten Best Lists next year, here are a pair of likely candidates:



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 (no cover art available) 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 it a perfect blend of Peter Mayle and Alexander McCall Smith, and I'd like to add the late, much-missed Magdalen Nabb, author of the Marshal Guarnaccia books, to the mix. What a wonderful combination of a gorgeous setting, a truly amazing plot, and a strong series lead.