When they want information Philip Marlowe and Jake Gittes go to the LA Public
Library. They have been going there for years by the time Paris Minton has come to
town from his birthplace in the Deep South, and Paris hardly believes his luck when
he discovers that the Public Library discards books it regards as unwanted, because
Paris wants anything to do with books. Paris collects the discards and they become
the basis of his bookshop in the ghetto - books and comics he buys and sells.
Down the street the Holy Rollers may be rolling, and across the street the
beauticians are straightening hair and lightening skin, but Paris likes to sit and read
and wait for the customers who just pay his rent.
Like Marlowe going to look for Florian's, though, a woman and a gorilla walk into
Minton's life and before he knows it, Paris Minton is in deep trouble. Elana Love is
her name but love ain't got nothing to do with it. In fact, Paris comes back from a
night of love down on the shore - well, struggles back, because she has stolen his
car among other things - to find that his bookshop has burned down. So Paris, who
is big in some things, but small in the physical courage department, goes back to
the bank for his savings and goes meet the fine on his friend Fearless Jones.
Past and present start to cross as Paris and Fearless go uptown - from the black
section to the white. Though even that is dubious because as far as the LA police
are concerned Paris's new friends ain't white, they is Jews; honorary whites at best.
As Paris tells us in his best literary narrator manner, things were different for blacks
and Jews in LA fifty years ago. There is a foreign bond missing, Sol Tannenbaum
may have stolen it from his accountant employers, but he has just done years in the
slammer (where he met the Leon the gorilla who has now come looking for the
reward for his protection) and may be a two-timing crook with a long line in promises
and nothing to back them. Strange figures start appearing, unfortunately just as
Paris is discovering new bodies. And figures out of the past; it was not just blacks
like Paris who escaped to California to escape intolerance, there was intolerance
and worse in Europe, where the bond came from.
Paris may be smart, but it takes the courage (or stupidity or thoughtlessness) of Fearless Jones to bear all the deaths and shooting. Paris can't go to the police, not just because he has discovered that some of them are corrupt, but because no police officer will tolerate a black man with attitude. And Paris can't go to the church because it was there that Love first showed her face. In fact, FEARLESS JONES is noir noir, and life is at its darkest.