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I tend to have trouble getting all the way through lengthy mystery series - I think the last I tried to read all the way through were the Amelia Peabody books, and I only got about three or four into those before losing track - but I liked both Barbara Hambly's first Benjamin January book, A Free Man of Color, and Walter Mosley's first Easy Rawlins book, Devil in a Blue Dress, a great deal, and am determined not to let my usual laziness with figuring out what comes next stop me!

(Heroic pose goes here, yes.)

Anyway, last week I read the second book of both of these series. Reviews are going under spoiler-cuts because technically anything could count as a spoiler for the first book, for example, BENJAMIN JANUARY DOES NOT DIE. (NEITHER DOES EASY RAWLINS. The spoiler mob can come after me now!)

Fever Season: ( The short version - Benjamin January vs. the cholera, also kidnappers, also a poisoner, also slander, also students who do not practice their lessons! )

A Red Death: ( The short version - Easy Rawlins vs. the tax man, also the Communist Jews, except maybe not actually vs. the Communist Jews but in fact sort of in favor of the Communist Jews despite being required to be vs. them by the tax man? )