It's tempting to call Walter Mosely the latter-day, African-American Raymond Chandler solely on the strength of his characterizations of Los Angeles. Like Philip Marlowe, Easy Rawlins, the protagonist of Walter Mosely's primary series (Mr. Mosely's bibliography is diverse), is chivalrous. Such a comparison might be flattering--who knows, it might even catch on. Repeat it once and it's a critical trope; repeat it five times and it's a cliche that would follow Mr. Mosely, a gifted stylist and storyteller, around for years.

Fortunately, comparing Walter Mosely with Raymond Chandler is reductive and unfair to both writers. As much as I love Chandler (his were some of the first detective novels I read as an adult), Mr. Mosely has always been a qualitatively different, and superior, in my opinion, author of first-person-narrated detective novels than his peers working in the genre. Little Scarlet is in every respect the apotheosis of the difference between Mr. Mosely and his literary peers.

This is a novel of social realism posing as a mystery. I've read every novel in the Easy Rawlins series. From the beginning, Mr. Mosely transcended the detective/mystery novel genre, using it as a framework for allegories about oppression, justice, human dignity and American "race relations"--as though someone with dark skin is somehow of a different race. Set against the backdrop of the 1965 riots in Watts, the reader once again sees Easy Rawlins asked to solve problems by people who don't respect him--indeed, are openly contemptuous of him on account of the color of his skin.

I bid Walter Mosely a long, robust literary career. Now to find a copy of Cinnamon Skin.

I had to read Mosley's Little Scarlet for my Mystery Lit class. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first while reading. I felt like I had walked down a bad alley in the wrong neighborhood. Little Scarlet takes place during the Watts Riots in the 60's (Google it!) and centers on the murder of a black woman and the behind the scenes investigation by Easy Rawlins. Rawlins is a black, hard boiled 'researcher' just trying to make it in a white world. He is not perfect and I think I'm in love with him.

The way Mosley let's the reader into the mind of Easy is fascinating. The book is from his POV and it is sprinkled with his experiences in the past that ties in to his current situation. He is not able to depend on the white police force to get the job done when it comes to a black murder. Easy uses the resources he has, that of his friends. They are living the best they can in a world pitted against them.

I didn't feel that Little Scarlet was a typical murder mystery. The reveal was pretty early and then the hunt for the murderer takes up the rest of the book. The aspect that appealed to me was that in the end we see that the murderer is a product of his society and that everyone makes decisions based on the experiences they've lived through. We're almost meant to feel sorry for the murderer. I think at times, we're meant to dislike Easy. Everything is not that black and white though. And yes, I did fall a bit for Easy. He made me feel safe in that dangerous world I was visiting. I think I will try visiting again one day. ( )

More philosophical than most Easy Rawlins stories, in the immediate aftermath of the Watts riots. Also more loving. ( )

Los Ángeles, 1965. Los barrios negros de la ciudad han sido arrasados por una oleada de disturbios que a punto ha estado de provocar una guerra racial en todo el país. Han ardido comercios, se han derruido edificios, se han saqueado almacenes. Y una mujer negra ha sido brutalmente asesinada. Pero la policía no se atreve a investigar en la zona en un momento de tanta violencia y, además, teme que el asesino pueda ser un hombre blanco. De ser así, no cabe duda de que se producirían nuevos episodios de disturbios entre la población negra. Sólo una persona puede meter las narices en ese barrio devastado sin levantar sospechas. Y a él acude la policía: se trata de Easy Rawlins, el hombre malcarado, hosco y atribulado que pronto convertirá la investigación del asesinato de Nola Payne en un símbolo de la lucha de su pueblo. Rawlins irá reconstruyendo los acontecimientos que rodearon el crimen y empezará a sospechar que la explicación fácil no tiene por qué ser la verdadera. Con su nueva novela, Walter Mosley demuestra tener tanto talento para reconstruir una época como para adentrarse en la psicología de un asesino y su perseguidor. Una nueva gran novela de uno de los mejores autores de thrillers norteamericanos.

Walter Mosley is great at evoking 1965 in the aftermath of the Watts Riots, and Ezekiel "Easy" Rollins' feelings and the mixture of fascination and fear Easy finds that there's a new way to see the world and his place in it.

Drawn into a murder investigation by the top brass of the LAPD, Easy follows close on the trail of a mass murderer, someone he's come up against before. This man has left a trail of dead women in his wake, all victims of his own anger and hatred against a mother who rejected him at a young age in favor of living as a white woman. All of the women in question are black and had the temerity to love white men - a crime in this murderer's eyes. Easy has tried in the past to tell the police about this man, but police are anything but cooperative. Why take the word of a black man, what does he know about such things, right?

Now, in the midst of the riots, another woman has turned up dead and the police, fear full of re-sparking the just calmed upheaval in the city, ask Easy to investigate. Predictably, the police pin the murder on the dead woman's white lover, but Easy recognizes the way "Little Scarlet" died. Much to his surprise, the Detective in charge of the case, Suggs, not only believes Easy's claims, but finds evidence which proves the murderer has been at work for a number of years and that a number of other men have been falsely accused.

Easy ways are anything but easy, and he gets hurt in the process of tracking the killer, angered at the injustice of being treated badly just based on the color of his skin, but he is dogged and determined, intelligent and surprisingly kind by turns. And a good family man. I really enjoy visiting him and his world. ( )