My Favorite Books -- Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned

I devour each Walter Mosely Easy Rawlins mystery as it comes out. Not only are they great mysteries, but they give you a wonderful perspective on changes in day-to-day life for minorities in this country over the past 45 or so years. Now that is a heck of an evolution. Even so, when Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned arrived, I was a little apprehensive about taking on a new Mosely character.

Would he give us another anti-private eye like Easy Rawlins? Maybe a violent, Mouse-type character this time? I worried that Mosely would give us a watered down version of what had already worked so spectacularly in his other books. I worried for nothing. In Socrates Fortlow, Walter Mosely delivered another truly unique and unforgettable character. This book made me laugh, cry, get pissed off, and think very long and hard about what it means to be a man when everything in your world says, "why bother?"

Socrates Fortlow is not a private eye and the short stories in this book are only mysteries in that they explore the mysteries of life, love, honor, friendship, fatherhood, violence, loneliness, personal integrity, and living with your past. Socrates is an ex-con living in modern Watts California, simply trying to make it from day to day. He is a big, bruiser of a man, with a violent past. A double-murderer, who understands the fear he sees in others eyes when they look at him and who does not blame them for the fear.

Told in 14 short stories, each reveals another facet of this rich character. Some of it is not pretty, for Socrates is flawed like us all. But he fights the demons of his past and accepts the limitations of his present. I don't think Socrates is looking for redemption, but he may just stumble upon it while simply trying to live with who and what he is. I loved this book.