Title: Fearless Jones Author: Walter Mosley Publisher: Duffy and Snellgrove and Title: Hell to Pay Author: George P Pelecanos Publisher: Orion Crime and the city solution? Something like that. Two well-established writers, Pelecanos famous for his ever-darker portrayals of Washington life while Mosley set himself up with his Easy Rawlins "black noir" series. This time around it's business as usual for both, Pelecanos writing a wrath and revenge filled story of life in the projects and poorer DC suburbs, whilst Mosley trips back to 1950s LA where racists, fraudsters and religious hucksters are on every corner. Mosley's a magician with his spry story telling of an innocent second hand bookseller who somehow finds himself caught up in between murderers and embezzlers and Israeli secret servicemen and no-good women who bring only trouble and a few stolen moments of pleasure. There's elation as the main character tells us, "She twisted my ear pretty hard, and I came so violently I lost consciousness for a while." The only confusion comes in early on when on page 4 the year is given as 1974, but pretty soon when no Black Panther crews arrive it's clear that should have been 1954. It's a small complaint from a feeble mind. Hell to Pay though seems small and feeble, a let down from work like "The Sweet Forever". Hyperbolized by the sycophants at Uncut magazine as part of an urban western trilogy, Hell to Pay looks at two private investigators, not quite family men, who go on a revenge kick when one of their junior gridiron players get shot down in a gangland ego-jism meant for someone else. Somehow the character's motivating angst seems hollow, their rage impotent. The sport as instigator of values and self worth motif is preached nonstop, as if somehow sticking your head up the ass of a team mate will solve the problems of poverty, abuse and angst, while issues of systemic neglect, slashed government funding and institutionalised racism are ignored. Hell to Pay in the end is gritty and dark, but ineffectual. On any given day I'd pick both Mosley and Pelecanos before I touched an airport read, before I'd lay my hands on a Grisham or an Archer or any of the others. But it's that heightened sense of expectation that sees Hell to Pay stumble whilst Fearless Jones stands tall.