Review by Booklist Review
Mosley is a true original. With 29 books since 1990, however, it's fair to ask whether he's diluting his talents. Is he a renaissance man or a dabbler? His last non-Easy Rawlins novel (and one of three books he published in 2007) was the sexistential Killing Johnny Fry. As advertised, the protagonist's journey was explicitly sexual. Though Diablerie doesn't carry the same tagline, it weds Mosley's continuing midcareer carnality to a noir story line: Ben Dibbuk is an emotionally detached computer nerd with a humdrum routine until his wife drags him to a launch party for a crime magazine called Diablerie. There he meets a woman who says she knows him and who drags him headlong into his debauched but forgotten past, where he may or may not have committed murder. Mosley's clipped prose is becoming more idiosyncratic, and his story lines are, too: Dibbuk's tale is a strange mix of psychology, criminology, and sexuality. Where in earlier novels Mosley championed stalwart, nurturing men (while giving them violent alter egos), lately he writes about men who yearn to dominate women sexually and whose primal instincts must be honored. Will Mosley's many fans follow him in this new direction? One suspects that some may dust off their copies of his debut, Devil in a Blue Dress, and start over from there. Still, give him credit for continuing to take chances and confound expectations.--Graff, Keir Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
A taut and suspenseful thriller that follows Ben Dibbuk as he unravels a mysterious plot against him initiated by his own wife, Mosley's latest effort is captivating. Richard Allen's reading, however, is not quite suitable--not because he isn't clear or doesn't reads well, but because his deep and rich tone that sounds almost classically trained doesn't suit the common, everyman character of Dibbuk. Allen's narration creates a disconnect from the story, and he fails to capture the essence of this thrilling tale with characters whose voices only vaguely resemble those of Mosley's text. Though there is an underlying tension created at the very onset of the story, Allen is simply not the right choice for this particular reading. Simultaneous release with the Bloomsbury hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 15). (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A disturbing chance encounter jolts a New York computer programmer out of his affectless routine and into the turbulent what-next zone in which Mosley's heroes from Easy Rawlins to Fearless Jones have always thrived. "You don't care about nuthin'. That's what I like about you," says Cassius Copeland, security expert at Our Bank, to his virtually friendless friend Ben Dibbuk. Ever since awakening in a Bowery gutter from a Colorado drinking spree more than 20 years ago, Ben's been living the Day-Timer life, with slots for his wife, magazine editor Mona Valeria; their daughter Seela, an NYU student; and his mistress Svetlana, whom he keeps tucked away in a West Side apartment. He doesn't care much about any of them, and it doesn't bother him that he doesn't. One evening Mona drags him to a banquet to celebrate the launch of Diablerie, her new magazine. The featured speaker is Barbara "Star" Knowland, who's turned her ordeal as a crazed killer's hostage into a high-profile memoir. Ben knew her back in Colorado, Star insists; in fact, he's been dogging her footsteps in New York. Even before she comes out and accuses him (to Mona, to the cops, to the FBI) of killing her menacing ex-lover Sean Messier two decades ago and letting another man take the rap, Ben, who can't remember any of this, suddenly finds himself in free fall. He plays hooky from work; he spies on Mona and her lover Harvard Rollins, an ex-cop security expert who's digging into Ben's past; he reaches out to the mother he hasn't phoned for seven years; his sex life ventures into the wild side Mosley explored in Killing Johnny Fry (2007). Caroming from one mysterious exchange to the next, Ben can't imagine aiming as high as understanding his life: "I just wanted to imagine a world outside my mind." Provocative, haunting, satisfyingly inconclusive work from a storyteller of formidable gifts and boundless ambition. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
