Walter Mosley resurrects Easy Rawlins

[753C]

I don't think any current forum readers are big fans of Walter Mosley, and that's a shame. I had to share this anyway though because it made me pretty darn happy. After pretty much killing one of my all time favorite characters, detective Easy Rawlins, Mosley has resurrected him in a new novel called Little Green.
Here is an Amazon review :

"When Walter Mosley burst onto the literary scene in 1990 with his first Easy Rawlins mystery, Devil in a Blue Dress—a combustible mixture of Raymond Chandler and Richard Wright—he captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers (including future president Bill Clinton). Eleven books later, Easy Rawlins is one of the few private eyes in contemporary crime fiction who can be called iconic and immortal. In the incendiary and fast-paced Little Green, he returns from the brink of death to investigate the dark side of L.A.’s 1960s hippie haven, the Sunset Strip.

We last saw Easy in 2007’s Blonde Faith, fighting for his life after his car plunges over a cliff. True to form, the tough WWII veteran survives, and soon his murderous sidekick Mouse has him back cruising the mean streets of L.A., in all their psychedelic 1967 glory, to look for a young black man, Evander “Little Green” Noon, who disappeared during an acid trip. Fueled by an elixir called Gator’s Blood, brewed by the conjure woman Mama Jo, Easy experiences a physical, spiritual, and emotional resurrection, but peace and love soon give way to murder and mayhem. Written with Mosley’s signature grit and panache, this engrossing and atmospheric mystery is not only a trip back in time, it is also a tough-minded exploration of good and evil, and of the power of guilt and redemption. Once again, Easy asserts his reign over the City of (Fallen) Angels."

More like Chandler and Claude Brown in my opinion, but you get the point. Anyway if any of you really love masterfully written classic style detective novels, you really should pick up some of Mosley's Easy Rawlins series. Or watch the outstanding movie Devil in a Blue Dress (Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle star), based on the first novel of the series, to ease you in.
I have two books to be read in line ahead of this one, but I can't wait.

 

[Bluenote]

You'd be incorrect on that , I never miss a Mosley since he's one of the spiritual heirs to the Chandler sort legacy.

 

[pontalba]

Ok, I have at least two on the shelf, unread...will remedy. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[753C]

I love the cover.

 

[753C]

Sorry Bluenote! Didn't know there were any others out there. If you don't read it first, I'll get a review up for you when I'm done.

 

[JGL]

I'm very into Hardboiled Detective Fiction and for some reason haven't gotten around to this. I haven't even seen the movie with Denzel. I'm going to jump in as soon as I finish up this Bernard Cromwell novel.

 

[753C]

Little Green - Walter Mosley
Obviously from the above posts I went into this just a little bit biased, having read and thoroughly enjoyed most of this entire series. I would like to think that if I wasn't a huge fan of this series I would still have read this book and given it four stars, but I might be kidding myself. This novel, more than any of the previous stories, draws on just about everything that came before it. For me that made it all the better, but I have to say I probably wouldn't recommend this book as a starting point for the series. Not that it would be hard to follow, Mosley explains everything concisely and doesn't bog the story down with past histories and reminiscences, but it is just more meaningful if you know all of the stories that led up to this one.
That said, Easy Rawlins is back. His murderous best friend Mouse is back. It's 1967 and L.A. has survived the riots of two years earlier. The hippie culture is entrenched on the Sunset Strip and that is where easy finds himself, only days after his "resurrection" from a nearly fatal car crash that took him headlong over a cliff. Why's he there? Why else? He's on the job of course. Looking for Evander "Little Green" Noon, a young man in trouble with all the wrong people. If Little Green's present doesn't kill him, his past almost certainly will, and Easy's been hired to bring him home safe and sound.
Good stuff.

 

[JGL]

I bought Devil but haven't started it yet. I wound up going on a non-fiction kick instead (with a couple of notable detours). With any luck I'll start it this week.