![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Been-Wrong.jpeg\")
<\/a>\u201cYou been wrong so long it feels like right to you.\u201d That\u2019s just one of the great sentences in book three of Walter Mosley\u2019s Joe King Oliver series, in which Joe admonishes his father, Chief Oliver, after tracking him down. Chief abandoned Joe and his mother when Joe was a child, getting himself sent to prison. Now, Joe hunts him down because Joe\u2019s grandmother wants to see her son Chief before she undergoes a dangerous operation. Joe has mixed feelings when he finds him \u2014 \u201cWanting to be with my Dad was like wanting to look into the sun\u201d \u2014 but has even more difficulty when he finds out Chief is wanted on a murder charge. Somebody killed somebody that Chief said he was going to kill. Joe has to find the real killer before the police catch up to Chief. The search takes him all the way from Chief\u2019s past to Joe\u2019s present, entertaining the reader with the usual cast of colorful characters Mosley comes up with.<\/p>\n
Mosley\u00a0adds a second thread to the narrative when Joe\u00a0takes on the case of a hunted woman and her child. Instead of turning her over to her husband as he was hired to do, Joe takes her under his wing, at once protecting her and setting a trap for her dangerous spouse. Joe\u2019s tactics take us into a New York underworld that only\u00a0Mosley\u00a0could imagine, full of off-beat characters, hidey holes and safe houses all around the city. The cat-and-mouse narrative complements the convoluted path Joe takes to prove Chief innocent.<\/p>\n
The story is accomplished with one great sentence after another. Some of the best ones come from Joe\u2019s many assignations with women. (He falls in love with four of them.) When one of them asks him how is he doing, he replies, \u201cI\u2019m just tryin\u2019 to stay alive long enough to get to know you better.\u201d\u00a0 After kissing another woman, he thinks of \u201c\u2026my mother and father in shadow on the outer edges of my hungry heart.\u201d No mystery writer comes up with as much good writing as\u00a0Mosley\u00a0does. He takes us deep into the life and loves of his characters. He\u2019s the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer BEEN WRONG SO LONG IT FEELS LIKE RIGHT: A King Oliver Novel. \u00a0By Walter Mosley. Mulholland Books. 336 pages. $29. \u201cYou been wrong so long it feels like right to you.\u201d That\u2019s just one of the great sentences in book three of Walter Mosley\u2019s Joe King Oliver series, in which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1356,590,14],"tags":[425,1443,79],"class_list":["post-3309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-fiction","category-detective-fiction-mysteries","category-thriller-suspense","tag-detective-fiction","tag-king-oliver-novel","tag-walter-mosley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3311,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions\/3311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}