Stephen Lyons'' review of the new Walter Mosley book begins with the kind of knee-jerk gripe people always resort to when they're groping for a lead, and it's just a hoary old cliche: "Today's fiction seems to rely on the man or woman in irreversible crisis. Protagonists spiral down to their last buck. They drink and drug too much, lust after the wrong lover and obsess on nameless angst. Endings are almost always dire." You could say the same thing about fiction from the beginning of time -- it's all about tragedy. And you can just as easily pick out books from the last year which turn out rather well for all concerned; Brick Lane or Mortals come to mind.