SHORTLISTED FOR THE 1993 GOLDEN DAGGER AWARD
‘In the crime field this is unquestionably the novel of the year’ Literary Review
‘Perhaps the most important black literary figure to appear on the scene since James Baldwin’s death’ Guardian
The police don’t show up on Easy Rawlins’s doorstep until the third girl dies. It’s Los Angeles, 1956, and it takes more than one murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. As he says: “I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto.” But Easy turns them down. He’s married now, a father — and his detective days are over. Then a white college coed dies the same brutal death, and the cops put the heat on Easy: If he doesn’t help, his best friend is headed for jail. So Easy’s back, walking the midnight streets of Watts and the darker, twisted avenues of a cunning killer’s mind…
‘In the crime field this is unquestionably the novel of the year’ Literary Review
‘Perhaps the most important black literary figure to appear on the scene since James Baldwin’s death’ Guardian
The police don’t show up on Easy Rawlins’s doorstep until the third girl dies. It’s Los Angeles, 1956, and it takes more than one murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. As he says: “I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto.” But Easy turns them down. He’s married now, a father — and his detective days are over. Then a white college coed dies the same brutal death, and the cops put the heat on Easy: If he doesn’t help, his best friend is headed for jail. So Easy’s back, walking the midnight streets of Watts and the darker, twisted avenues of a cunning killer’s mind…
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Reviews
Rawlins moves intimately through Los Angeles' menacing mid-fifties black low-life, accumulating threats, violence, clues and the disintegration of his marriage, Mosley captures the era with masterful dialogue, subtle social comment and a total command of place and time. Even Clinton can be right
Good-time girls, corrupt politicians, trigger-happy psychopaths and other crime novel fixtures are all in place. But Walter Mosley's writing hums with the particular rhythms and blues of the black American experience. What makes these books special is their vivid portrayal of life in the side streets where Philip Marlowe seldom ventured
A cracking read - Chandler brought up to date - with detective Easy Rawlins treading even meaner streets than Philip Marlowe did
In the crime field this is unquestionably the novel of the year. But Mosley is already outstripping the genre. Stay with him while you can
An excellent craftsman, Mosley's finely tuned sentences and masterful handling of the traditional techniques of the novel distinguish him as perhaps the most important black literary figure to appear on the scene since James Baldwin's death
Taking the hard-boiled tradition of Raymond Chandler and transporting it to the streets of Watts and South Central, Mosley has written a sequence of rich and compelling thrillers which say more about racism in America than almost any contemporary novel you care to mention
What sets these books apart from other suspense novels is, of course, the protagonist, Easy Rawlins. Rawlins is not your ordinary mystery hero. A black man coping with crime, racism and his own personal demons - though not necessarily in that order - he is a very complicated, personable and likeable character
