This books is so bad ass, I had to stop at story two to write this blog. I mean, you walk about gritty interspersed with fluid, languid prose, then bam! He hits you with something so heart stopping that you have to sit for a moment to digest it.
Unlike Easy Rawlins, the character from Devil in a Blue Dress, Socrates is nothing like that man. Meet Socrates Fortlow, a tough ex-con seeking truth and redemption in South Central Los Angeles -- and finding the miracle of survival.
"I either committed a crime or had a crime done to me every day I was in jail. Once you go to prison you belong there."
Socrates Fortlow has done his time: twenty-seven years for murder and rape, acts forged by his huge, rock-breaking hands. Now, he has come home to a new kind of prison: two battered rooms in an abandoned building in Watts.
Working for the Bounty supermarket, and moving perilously close to invisibility, it is Socrates who throws a lifeline to a drowning man: young Darryl, whose shaky path is already bloodstained and fearsome. In a place of violence and hopelessness, Socrates offers up his own battle-scarred wisdom that can turn the world around.
Evidently, this is a movie on HBO that I knew nothing about, so yeah, you know what I'll be doing later today. Checking this out, but in all honestly, it kind of reminds me of Cornbread, Earl and me. Minus Earl.
Walter Mosely is always great for a read. Looking forward to finishing the book and seeing the movie.