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This page lists novels that feature Socrates Fortlow, a Los Angeles based ex-convict.

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

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned

Walter Mosley

1997

A Socrates Fortlow novel.

"Socrates Fortlow has done his time: twenty-seven years for murder and rape, acts forged by his huge, rock-breaking hands. Now, he has come home to a new kind of prison: two battered rooms in an abandoned building in Watts. Working for the Bounty supermarket, and moving perilously close to invisibility, it is Socrates who throws a lifeline to a drowning man: young Darryl, whose shaky path is already bloodstained and fearsome. In a place of violence and hopelessness, Socrates offers up his own battle-scarred wisdom that can turn the world around."

Walkin' the Dog

Walter Mosley

1999

A Socrates Fortlow novel.

"Socrates Fortlow, an ex-convict forced to define his own morality in a lawless world, confronts wrongs that most people would rather ignore and comes face-to-face with the most dangerous emotion: hope. It has been nine years since his release from prison, and he still makes his home in a two-room shack in a Watts alley. But he has a girlfriend now, a steady job, and he is even caring for a pet, the two-legged dog he calls Killer. These responsibilities make finding the right path even harder - especially when the police make Socrates their first suspect in every crime within six blocks . . . . Walkin' the Dog builds to a stunning climax as Socrates takes on a rogue cop who has terrorized his neighborhood."

The Right Mistake

Walter Mosley

2008

A Socrates Fortlow novel.

"Living in South Central L.A., Socrates Fortlow is a sixty-year-old ex-convict, still strong enough to kill men with his bare hands. Now freed after serving twenty-seven years in prison, he is filled with profound guilt about his own crimes and disheartened by the chaos of the streets. Along with his gambler friend Billy Psalms, Socrates calls together local people of all races from their different social stations - lawyers, gangsters, preachers, Buddhists, businessmen - to conduct meetings of a Thinkers' Club, where all can discuss the unanswerable questions in life. The street philosopher enjoins his friends to explore - even in the knowledge that there's nothing that they personally can do to change the ways of the world - what might be done anyway, what it would take to change themselves. Infiltrated by undercover cops, and threatened by strain from within, tensions rise as hot-blooded gangsters and respectable deacons fight over issues of personal and social responsibility. But simply by asking questions about racial authenticity, street justice, infidelity, poverty, and the possibility of mutual understanding, Socrates and his unlikely crew actually begin to make a difference."