‘Walkin’ the Dog’ is the follow up to Walter Mosley’s excellent ‘Always Outnumbered, Always Outnumbered’ and it’s more of the same. That might sound like a criticism, but if you’ve read my review of the first Socrates Fortlow book you’ll know it’s high praise.
Like that book, this is a series of connected short stories about the life of a black ex-con trying to make a life for himself in Los Angeles. Also like the first book, it’s gripping, powerful, moving and deeply political. Fortlow is an amazing character, and spending more time in his company is an absolute delight. He’s determined, wise and filled with righteous rage.
I don’t know if it is the short story format that makes the difference, or Fortlow himself, but I definitely prefer these books to Mosley’s better known Easy Rawlins series. The tales in this volume have both punch and emotion, and allow Mosley to focus on character and place rather than worrying so much about plot. That’s not to say the story-telling isn’t great though, and the threads that run through the stories bind them together as a cohesive whole.
The dog of the title is one of those threads, and Fortlow’s care for it is touching, The implications of his actions also adds some real tension in one of the stories. More than anything though, these stories are about the day to day struggles of the underprivileged in modern America. Mosley’s writing is fierce and impassioned. His depiction of impoverished LA leaps off the page and Fortlow and his companions are memorable and as real as any fictional characters I’ve read. That adds up to another amazingly satisfying book. For me it cements Walter Mosley as being in the top tier of crime writers, someone who writes about the mystery of the human condition, rather than just churning out whodunnits.
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Six years after being released from prison where he served 27 years for murder, Socrates Fortlow is living in an unofficial apartment with no true address, in a space between two abandoned buildings. He has a minimum wage job, a two-legged dog, and one or two friends. The police keep him in mind whenever there is a crime of any sort in his neighborhood; despite his efforts to live clean, the label of "murderer" is a permanent tattoo on his existence. Socrates, whom we met first in Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, has no fear of pain, death or jail, but he does have strange disturbing dreams. He trusts no one but himself, and wants very little from life. He does, however, want to sort out his conscience, get a grip on what freedom means, and go forward doing "right" as he sees it. This novel is episodic, philosophical and strangely hopeful. Highly recommended. ( )

Socrates Fortlaw becomes a little more human and a little less of an archetype in the second book featuring this character. Well done, but not as gripping as Always Outnumbered Always Outgunned. ( )

The simplistic form of language Mosley employs can be irritating and off-putting at times, but at its best it also adds a tense power that is stylistically unique. And you care about Socrates Fortlow, about his crimes, his anger, his redemption.

An honest, unflinching attempt to acknowledge and confront black experience in America, along with broader questions of identity and what makes us who we are--whether white, black, or mexican, criminal or cop.

An outstanding contemporary tale. ( )