I must be one of the very few members of the thriller-reading public who finds Walter Mosley's novels pretentious, patronising, badly-plotted and highly ludicrous. I feel the same about James Sallis and Robert B. Parker, and cannot, for the life of me, understand how they have reached such summits of acclaim. This present effort is a linked series of stories following the sentimentalised efforts of one Socrates Fortlow, ex-convict and murderer, to use his strength and know-how to help the downtrodden and oppressed of the Los Angeles ghetto of Watts. This character is summed up in the following: "Socrates thought about a promise he'd made. He swore to himself that he'd never hurt another person - except if he had to do it for self-preservation. He swore to try and do good if the chance came before him. That way he could ease the evil deeds that he had perpetrated in the long evil life that he'd lived." Too many "thats" and too smarmy. Pass me the sick-bag.