Walter Mosley’s father-and-son mystery, Been Wrong So Long It Feels Like Right, the latest in his King Oliver series, pulses with the contradictory emotions generated by the long estrangement between Joe King Oliver, an NYPD detective turned PI, and his father, Chief Odin Oliver, who served a long prison sentence. The thrillers and mysteries below similarly interweave complicated, painful, and mysterious paternal relationships with dangerous criminal investigations.
After the Lights Go Out. By John Vercher. 2022. Soho, $26 (9781641293310).
In Vercher’s tragic tale, MMA fighter Xavier Wallace is alienated from his Black mother, while his visits with his white father, who is drifting into final-stages dementia and spewing long-suppressed racist venom, are agonizing. To make matters much worse, Xavier is fighting chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), or pugilistic dementia, and must…
