Staff Pick
Walter Mosley is one of my favorite authors. Charcoal Joe is his latest Easy Rawlins mystery.
I love Walter Mosley's detective series! But, I truly love Easy Rawlins, who confronts racism
wherever and whenever he finds it. Always with the best comeback as he is kickin' ass and takin' names! Easy Rawlins is one of my heroes! Recommended By Adrienne C., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Walter Mosley’s indelible detective Easy Rawlins is back, with a new detective agency and a new mystery to solve.
Picking up where his last adventures in Rose Gold left off in L.A. in the late 1960s, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins finds his life in transition. He’s ready—finally—to propose to his girlfriend, Bonnie Shay, and start a life together. And he’s taken the money he got from the Rose Gold case and, together with two partners, Saul Lynx and Tinsford "Whisper" Natly, has started a new detective agency. But, inevitably, a case gets in the way: Easy’s friend Mouse introduces him to Rufus Tyler, a very old man everyone calls Charcoal Joe. Joe’s friend’s son, Seymour (young, bright, top of his class in physics at Stanford), has been arrested and charged with the murder of a white man from Redondo Beach. Joe tells Easy he will pay and pay well to see this young man exonerated, but seeing as how Seymour literally was found standing over the man’s dead body at his cabin home, and considering the racially charged motives seemingly behind the murder, that might prove to be a tall order.
Between his new company, a heart that should be broken but is not, a whole raft of new bad guys on his tail, and a bad odor that surrounds Charcoal Joe, Easy has his hands full, his horizons askew, and his life in shambles around his feet.
Review
"Fasten your seat belts. It's time for another simmering tour of Los Angeles, this time in 1968, with Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins serving once more as the unwilling guide. Read Mosley…for his matchless ability to present mosaic worlds in which even the most minor characters arrive burning with their own unquenchable stories." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[Charcoal Joe] is a must for Easy Rawlins fans and anyone who appreciates fresh, powerful prose." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"In Charcoal Joe, this series' army of followers will happily recognize the case as the mere backdrop for Easy’s emotionally charged story, insightful lens into L.A.’s 1960s streets, and always-impressive mental acrobatics." Booklist
Review
"In his 14th Easy Rawlins mystery (after Rose Gold), Mosley returns to L.A. in the late 1960s, with its racial unrest and discrimination...The story continues with more deception, murders, and violence. Like peeling an onion, Easy uncovers the truth one layer at a time...Mosley's exciting and profound mysteries with their poetic prose and historical clarity fascinate readers because Easy moves so smoothly among different worlds. His latest will please his many fans." Jerry P. Miller, Library Journal
About the Author
Walter Mosley is the author of more than fifty books, most notably thirteen Easy Rawlins mysteries, the first of which, Devil in a Blue Dress, was made into an acclaimed film starring Denzel Washington. Always Outnumbered, adapted from his first Socrates Fortlow novel, was an HBO film starring Laurence Fishburne. Mosley is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, a Grammy Award, a PEN America Lifetime Achievement Award, a Langston Hughes Medal, and a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award. A Los Angeles native and a graduate of Goddard College, he holds an MFA from CCNY and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.