For some time now my main vice has been crime fiction. I'm still a novice, but over the last five years or so I've sampled several authors and read the complete (or near complete) works of a few: Elmore Leonard (whom I had regarded the best of the lot for some time); George Pelecanos, Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin (who were all tied in second place). Runners up, in my ranking, included John Harvey, Lawrence Block, and Ruth Rendell. Lower on the list were Patricia Cornwell and John Sandford.
In fact, once I found Emore Leonard, his work became the standard by which I compared everything else. (With Tishomingo Blues being the last of his great novels, in my opinion.) Indeed, I would rank crime novels on a scale of 0 to 1 Elmore; for instance, Pelecanos' Right as Rain would get a .9 Elmore. Jonathon Kellerman's Dr. Death would get a .05 Elmore.
But in just the past few weeks I've been working through the crime fiction of an author whose work stands well above anything I've read before in the genre: Walter Mosley. While I've only read five or six of his novels so far (in both the Easy Rawlins and Fearless Jackson series), his work is deeper and more beautiful than I could have imagined possible. (Now I should warn you, there is a fair amount of schmutz sprinkled throughout his work, but no more than say in Connelly's.)
His books leave me astonished. Moreover, his finely drawn characterizations and fantastic plots remind me more of the work of Isaac Bashevis Singer than other crime fiction novelists.
And here is the question: Why has Mosley not won an Edgar for any of his crime novels? (The Edgar being the award of the Mystery Writers of America.) Unfortunately there is an obvious answer to this question, and it doesn't make me happy.
I'll go further: The world I've entered through Mosley's fiction (i.e., the novels I've read so far), set a generation ago in African-American Los Angeles, is rich, profound, and textured. While much of contemporary American crime fiction is set among the Black American urban underclass, it is only after reading Mosley that I have realized how superficial the portrayal has been by other, white, authors.
So, to all who praise The Wire or Richard Price's Clockers: If you have not yet sampled Walter Mosley's take on urban crime fiction, do so now.
