Down the River Unto the Sea

Prolific author Walter Mosley’s mystery thriller Down the River Unto the Sea follows private investigator and defunct NYPD detective Joe King Oliver, who, framed for assault by crooked cops in his time on the force, spent time in solitary confinement on Rikers Island. He has since kept a low profile solving crimes and caring for his daughter Aja-Denise. The conflict begins when Joe receives a letter from a woman who says she was paid to frame him, leading Joe to take on his own case to figure out who on the force wanted him gone, and why. At the same time, Joe is tasked with solving a case in which a radical black journalist is accused of killing two police officers, both of whom were known for abusing their power to traffic drugs and women in the slums of the city. Joe takes on both cases in an attempt to find justice and rid the NYPD of rotten and abusive cops.

The novel begins with Joe King Oliver, a solitary man who keeps mostly to himself after he was removed from his position as a prolific detective for the New York Police Department. Back in the day, Joe was working his way up the ranks as an investigator. He was tracing a known car thief when he was framed for assault, and he soon found himself behind bars on Rikers Island, doing time for a crime he didn't commit.

About ten years later, Joe makes his money as a private investigator in Brooklyn, using his detective skills to solve crimes in his community. He is mostly a solitary man, kept alive by his work and his daughter, Aja-Denise, who helps him run the business and manage the office. After his time in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, Joe is haunted – by the violence he had to endure and commit to get by in prison, and by the knowledge that he lost his career and his passion for life due to the actions of cops who are still running the streets of New York.



Suddenly, and by pure coincidence, two distinctly related cases appear on Joe's desk. The first arrives in the form of a card from a woman who admits that she was coerced into framing Joe all those years before. The second, a black activist known for his radical politics has been charged with murdering two on-duty police officers, both of whom were known for being corrupt and smuggling drugs and women into poor neighborhoods. Joe decides to take on both cases, seeing the case of the activist as a way to absolve himself of his ghosts, and knowing that following up with the woman who framed him will finally allow him to know the truth about the end of his career.

In order to solve both cases, Joe moves from Wall Street to dark alleys in seedy neighborhoods, interviewing lawyers and prostitutes alike to get the information he needs to exonerate the activist and absolve himself. Joe takes on Aja-Denise, his seventeen-year-old daughter, as an assistant, and also recruits Mel Frost, a sociopath and violent criminal. Once a notorious bank robber, Mel Frost "wasn't the kind of guy who told you anything unless it was either absolutely necessary or a lie." Mel is working as a clockmaker, but his brilliance, lack of empathy, and desire to get any job done might just lead Joe down a path toward the truth.

In this dark depiction of New York City, the police are often the people to fear, and it is unclear who is on what side, and why. No character is without fault or the capacity for violence, which makes for a complicated, twisting plot that delves deep into issues of corruption, race, power, and more.



Walter Mosley is the award-winning author of the Easy Rawlins series, as well as other mystery series and standalone novels. He was born in Los Angeles in 1952 and now lives in New York City. He has received an O. Henry Award, multiple NAACP Image Awards for his work representing race in fiction, and an Anisfield Wolf Award for works that increase the understanding and appreciation of race in the United States. Down the River Unto the Sea received an Edgar Award for Mystery in 2019, one of the most prestigious awards for genre fiction. Many of Mosley's works have been adapted for film and TV.