Finished reading: Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley 📚

I picked this book up totally at random, after reading an article announcing the release of the sequel. I had heard Walter Mosley’s name before but did not know anything about him, or that he wrote detective fiction. But a few days after I read the article, I stumbled across this title in a Half-Price Books, so I decided it was a sign.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a detective novel before. But now that I have, I absolutely see the appeal of the genre. There’s some element of continuous suspense that the author layers in that I am not used to seeing elsewhere; a thrill that compels you to keep reading the book.

That sensation was notable in this book because since I didn’t really like the protagonist – or, really, any of the characters – at all. Everyone in the book felt grizzly and crass, almost in a pathetic way… but this was probably by design. It was hard to inhabit the perspective of the main character sometimes, but the author kept pulling me along … this book was 336 pages and I read it in four days!

I definitely have plans to pick up more detective fiction sometime soon! But I am undecided if it will be more Walter Mosley or not.