Rating: 
Summary: Great book
Review: No one writes as well about the plights and angsts of the black man like Walter Mosley. His proses are wonderful with just the right amount of slang thrown in to give the reader a sense of the black community. He is a true artist to the art of great writing. Most of all Mosley's character development draws you in and makes the reader empathize with the character. You find yourself cheering them on to the very end of redemption and/or self-realization.
Rating:
Summary: Moving
Review: Despite the exconvict's violent past, Socrates is a reflective, compasionate man with pride, principal and love in his heart for his community. Socrates never fails to strongly affect every person that he interacts with--positive or otherwise.There is much that Socrates had to learn after being incarcerated for over 20 years, all of which is intertwined with the guilt he still feels for his crimes. What's more, he learns and teaches a new lesson everyday. There is much to be said for a person that can actually recognize his faults and learn from them. Socrates is/was a brutal murderer of innocent people. Yet Mosley wrote about a man with integrity and purpose. There should be more men like him (excluding the criminal past).
Rating:
Summary: CAPTIVATING STORIES
Review: I've found a hero--Socrates! The stories are lessons in love, friendship, community, integrity, redemption, and just plain ole survival. They will make you laugh one minute and cry the next. This book is one enjoyabe read. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: DEEPLY MOVING, THANKS WALTER MOSLEY
Review: Socrates Fortlow is a character that embodies some part of the everyday experiences of African American people, hope, despair, insight, trust, wisdom. As a member of the criminal defense bar, I come in contact with people like Socrates on a daily basis. The novel had particular meaning for me. No matter hard difficult my job becomes, or how oppressive the law has become, or how inherently racist the system continues to be, or how frustated I get with my clients, this novel reminded me of hope, persistance and the goodness of mankind. This book reinforced why I will comtinue to represent men like Socrates Fortlow.
Rating:
Summary: gripping stories from master storyteller
Review: After reading a couple of Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries, which I liked fairly well, I picked up this book of stories about the estimable Socrates Fortlowe. It is a wonderful collection, and also important, because it really questions that stubborn myth known as "the American dream", and it does so without putting down the people who still believe in that myth, against all possible odds. The Fortlowe stories are far richer than the Rawlins books, especially because the main character is so complicated, and because Mosley never lets him take the obvious way out of any situation. Highly recommended to anyone not afraid of books with attitude.
Rating:
Summary: Enter another world!
Review: A marvelous work by a gifted writer! Each story is a life vignette of an ex-con who is attempting to get along in the complicated world of modern L.A. His attempts to reconcile his violent past with his moral code and conflicts are the struggles of everyman. I savored each page. Just terrific stuff! Thanks, Walter.
Rating:
Summary: a great work of art
Review: Like many other readers who have read and loved this book and its protagonist, Socrates Fortlow, I too was deeply moved by Walter Mosely's amazing book. Too few books "ring true" in the way that this one does. Too few books grapple with the most important issues, the biggest questions while, at the same time, weaving a story that the reader can't set down . . .Mosely does all of the above and much more. I am deeply appreciative of his wonderful contribution to the literature of our times. This book will outlive all of us . . . and it should!
Rating:
Summary: Profound, moving
Review: I'd never heard of Walter Mosley and had not come to this book via the Easy Rawlins series. Rather, I saw it on a remainders table, bought it on impulse, gulped it down in two sittings. A book about black men and the ache to do something worthwhile against the odds of real life in South Central. Two days after I read the book I saw the movie adaptation with the inimitable Laurence Fishburne. A wonderful movie. But the book is better. Socrates Fortlow is a true original, and I loved him.
Rating:
Summary: always outnumbered always outgunned
Review: Walter Mosley paints a picture in L.A. for African American Baby Boomers that is right on the mark. One can almost remember Socrates as either a threatning presence in the neighborhood, or know him as a relative that nobody likes to talk about.
Rating:
Summary: A great author's best book
Review: Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries are terrific, and RL's Dream is worthwhile reading, but this book surpasses all his others. Socrates Fortlow is real, multidimensional, unpredictable but deeply moral, and his life in a very tough environment is gripping and believable. This is such a great book, you'll be glad you picked it up.
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