Review of the Day: Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right by Walter Mosley

At its most basic this book is the story of how Joe King Oliver goes on a quest to find his long-lost father. At least in my opinion, Mosley does an excellent job channeling the work of hard-boiled detective story masters like Raymond Chandler and Dashiel Hammet. Highly recommended.

Here are some passages I liked:

I both believed and did not believe in the words I spoke. Maybe there wasn’t a God, but there I was on my way to a fate that felt preordained (p. 44).

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“The Internet is an amazing tool,” I stated. It wasn’t a lie even if it wasn’t how I found her. (p. 44-5).

The joy that invaded that man’s sadness was like a TV commercial where they’d pour a stain remover on a deeply soiled sheet and, like magic, that sheet was white again (p. 58).

When he walked up to me, I studied his face to gauge his mood the way prehistoric islanders must have studied the skies looking for signs of tsunami (p. 61).

It was fun to watch the changes the single mom had to go through to get to the place where she could say, “I’m sorry, sorry I said that. I was wrong” (p. 65).

“There’s no such a thing as debt between friends,” I said, wondering if I’d read that adage somewhere (p. 145).

I was there to get Ogre Orr off Hart’s back, and so my mind needed to be absolutely clear. In order to achieve this state of mind, I allowed in the fluorescent lights and the travelers’ noises, the flitting birds that had taken up residence in the airport and the sonorous PA announcements coming through the many speakers embedded all around. I imagined that this broad mode of perception was like a worker ant might feel at midnight and at rest in a hive of tens of thousands (p. 238).

kindle and LibroFM audiobook. 327 pgs. 22 February 2026.