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This page lists novels that feature Leonid McGill, a New York based private investigator.

Cover images are usually of an early US edition and a more recent digital or paperback edition.

The Long Fall

Walter Mosley

2009

A Leonid McGill novel.

"We follow former rule-breaker Leonid McGill as he's buffeted between the overlords of New York's underbelly, desperate to turn straight, but unable to say no to a nicely paid job. When we're introduced, he's calling in old favours and greasing NYPD palms to uncover seemingly harmless information for a high-paying client. But when the former schoolmates on his list are bludgeoned to death one by one, McGill realises that a friendly reunion wasn't quite what his taskmaster had in mind. And the awkward questions that follow seem almost welcome in comparison to a visit from Willie Sanderson, a trained killer and 'modern-day Frankenstein', now primed to ensure that McGill breathes his last."

Known to Evil

Walter Mosley

2010

A Leonid McGill novel.

"A mystery caller sends Leonid McGill to an uptown address 'just to check a girl's OK'. There's no explanation - just a name, Angelique - a reward, and the chilling knowledge that he's working for Rinaldo Alphonse, the most feared man in New York. What LT finds is a crime scene. A girl lies with her face blown off, her assassin felled by a knife. But the dead girl isn't the one LT was sent to find, and her killer's injuries don't make sense. The next day Alphonse comes calling: LT must find Angelique before the assassin's assassin tracks her down. Alphonse isn't the only one who wants a bit of LT's time - the NYPD, finding his appearance too convenient, think they can finally put away the thorn in their side. But why do so many people want a piece of the apparently normal, clean-living Angelique? And why is the mafia coming after McGill, linking his sons - shy Dmitri and streetwise Twill - to the escape of a sex-trafficked Belarussian girl? As both plots career towards a thrilling finale, McGill must put his street know-how and book of lethal contacts to the test, while haunted by the reappearance of a face from his crooked past and his wife Katrina's continued infidelities."

When the Thrill Is Gone

Walter Mosley

2011

A Leonid McGill novel.

"The economy has hit the PI business hard, and Leonid McGill is getting job offers only from the criminals he's worked so hard to leave behind. So how can he say no to the beautiful young woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash? She's an artist, she tells him, who's escaped poverty via marriage to a rich collector. A rich collector with two ex-wives whose deaths are shrouded in mystery. She says she fears for her life, and needs Leonid's help. Though Leonid knows better, this isn't a job he can afford to turn away. Meanwhile, Leonid's personal life grows ever more chequered: his favourite stepson, Twill, drops out of school for mysteriously lucrative pursuits; his wife takes a new lover, infuriating the old one and endangering the whole family; and Leonid's girlfriend, Aura, is back but intent on some serious conversations... Is the client at his door who she seems and - if his family's misadventures don't kill him first - will sorting out the woman's crooked tale bring Leonid straight to death's door?"

Karma

Walter Mosley

2011

A Leonid McGill novella originally published in the anthology Dangerous Women. This edition only published electronically.

"In Karma Walter Mosley tells us the story of the moment Leonid McGill decided to change his ways, when a seemingly classic femme fatale forced him to confront the reality of his life of corruption and betrayal. It was the culmination of a dark and tragic case that reached back through McGill's entire career, plumbing the full, complex history of the soul-scarred figure."

All I Did Was Shoot My Man

Walter Mosley

2012

A Leonid McGill novel.

"Seven years ago Zella Grisham was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder and grand theft. After two years of fruitless negotiations Zella was sentenced to 25 years in prison, mainly because she refused to give up her accomplices in a $6.8 million heist from Rutgers Assurance Corp. But Zella had played no part in that heist. PI Leonid McGill had planted the evidence. All Zella had done was shoot her man, her cheating husband Harry Tangelo, when she'd caught him in bed with her best friend. That was a long time ago, and McGill has regrets. So he hires a hotshot attorney to set her free. Zella's big regret is that she tried to kill Tangelo. McGill agrees to track him down, but the trail leads back to Rutgers Assurance, and the man who paid McGill to plant the evidence is found dead. As Zella is hounded and an attempt is made on McGill's life, the detective realises the case is more complicated than he had ever imagined - but can he live long enough to sort it out?"

And Sometimes I Wonder About You

Walter Mosley

2015

A Leonid McGill novel.

" Ex-boxer, hard drinker, in a business that trades in cash and favours, McGill's an old-school P.I. working a city that's got fancy all around him. When McGill is approached by a small-time office manager to track down his long lost cousin, he declines the case. He can almost smell the desperation on the man. But then McGill's office is broken into, and his potential client is found dead. Soon, McGill finds himself drawn into the underbelly of an establishment family, and a Pandora's box of secrets and lies. Taking you from the moneyed haunts of Uptown to the shady streets of Downtown, Mosley is the Chandler of Obama's America, and one of the finest crime writers in the world."