Mosley ignores Easy way in new suspenseful novel

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This article was published 18/12/2010 (5775 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ptolemy (Papa) Grey is a 91-year-old Mississippi sharecropper’s son, arthritic and sinking into regretful dementia, living in a squalid L.A. apartment and exploited or forgotten by his extended family.

Buried in a near-century’s detritus and beset by a cacophony of classical radio and unfathomable 24-hour TV news fragments, he caroms off random memories of lynchings, tarpaper-shack fires, wives and children he has outlived and the recurrent aphorisms of a childhood mentor.

But striving to breach this confused and tangential mind is a determination to avenge a murder, safeguard his family and ensure that the fatal legacy of a “righteous crime” is used to “make a difference for poor black folks treated like they do us.”

There is no doubt these are The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (Riverhead, 288 pages, $33), no mystery unless life counts. But Walter Mosley’s richly allegorical rendition of Grey’s enlightenment, deliverance and demise offers a depth of humane and literary suspense unequalled by the gritty Easy Rawlins detective series for which the New York novelist is justly famed.

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Faced with ratting out his crew on a jewelry heist — his only alibi for a bogus rape beef — or doing the time, old-pro thief Tim “Sugar” Caine takes The Weight (Pantheon, 272 pages, $30).

Those are the rules, and the strictures of criminal mores and prison survival etiquette — both in the observance and the breach — are the grist for the noir-nouveau mill of New York lawyer-writer Andrew Vachss.

Out of prison and on a dicey errand from the heist’s mastermind to clean up loose ends (i.e. a possibly talkative crew member), Caine meets Rena and other folks who don’t play by the rules. Lies, double-dealing and havoc ensue as the pawns scramble to exit the game intact.

Few plumb the relativistic integrity of the “honourable” criminal mind like Vachss, but these brutal insights provide only the lexicon for what is really a battered and bruised romance — a salvation, of sorts, for those who shoulder life’s true weight.

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Anyone who doubts the Ian Fleming estate’s choice of perennial chart-topper Jeffery Deaver to pen the next James Bond novel need only savour his latest standalone barnburner, Edge (Simon & Schuster, 416 pages, $30).

The trademark research acumen that informs the maze-like forensics of Deaver’s Lincoln Rhyme novels is here displayed in the elaborate “shepherd” tradecraft of one-name federal protection officer Corte. His adversary is Henry Loving, a “lifter” who uses blackmail, threats, kidnapping and torture to extract information.

A master of brilliantly paced misdirection, Deaver could teach a post-grad course in thriller writing.

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TAKE A PASS

Cross Fire, James Patterson (Little, Brown, 384 pages, $32): Once in awhile, you just have to check in with Patterson, Inc. to see if he’s still as bad as ever.

Yup.

Red Wolf, Lisa Marklund, (Vintage Canada, 512 pages, $20): Ninth do-or-die melodrama starring “relentless reporter” Annika Bengtzon by Swedish publisher-journalist Marklund. A cautionary tale for bosses who try to write. Blame the translator!

And Thereby Hangs a Tale, Jeffrey Archer (St. Martin’s, 320 pages, $30): Fifteen fast-food snippets from the Brit stalwart’s idea drawer, more like yarns overhead at the local pub. A few are mildly amusing but, really, why bother?

Coming Back, Marcia Muller (Grand Central, 304 pages, $28): Last time we heard from San Francisco PI Sharon McCone, she’d been shot in the head. Pity she didn’t succumb. With nearly 30 instalments, ever-more-unlikely scenarios and an unwieldy cast of soap-opera proportions and depth, it’s time to put this dog down.

John Sullivan is editor of the Free Press Autos, Homes and Travel sections and specialty websites.