John Woman

In this intellectually exciting work, Mystery Grand Master Mosley creates a different kind of suspense as Cornelius Jones, son of a passionate Italian American mother and autodidact African American father, remakes himself after terrible loss and a moment of violence in his teenage years. During his father's prolonged final illness, with his mother having vanished, young Cornelius surreptitiously took over his father's job at a silent movie theater in New York. An incident there led to his meeting Det. Colette Margolis and his first, tough sexual relationship; with his father's death, he worked his way swiftly through higher education. Eventually, Cornelius remakes himself as Professor John Woman, inspired by his father's example to teach his students that while history is indeed an incontrovertible series of events, it's made of too many trillions of stories to grasp. He ends up teaching his brand of deconstructionist history at a Southwestern university, where he's loved by his select handful of students, reviled by the administration, and targeted by a mystical group as perfect for their needs, even as his own history circles back to get him.