04/15/2024
Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins tackles a multilayered missing persons case in the wistful 16th installment of Mosley’s bestselling series (after Blood Grove ). When Amethystine Stoller walks into Easy’s L.A. office looking for her ex-husband, Curt—a forensic accountant who got mixed up with mobsters running a crooked casino—Easy agrees to help track him down. The case unsettles the PI, stirring up feelings he initially dismisses as a powerful desire for Amethystine. Before long, however, he’s plunged into a labyrinth of memories about lost loves and his rough Houston childhood. Eventually, Curt turns up dead, and Easy reaches out to his only ally on the LAPD, Melvin Suggs, for help. Melvin is on the run from corrupt senior officers on the force, and the more Easy hears about his friend’s plight, the more he wonders if it’s connected to the same mob operations that got Curt killed. As in previous entries, the twists and turns of the investigation take a back seat to Easy’s emotional journey, and Mosley sheds keen light on the difficulties of navigating life in America as a Black man. This far into the series, though, Easy’s all-but-guaranteed investigative success drains the narrative of some of its dramatic tension. Still, Mosley’s fans will enjoy themselves. Agent: Gloria Loomis, Watkins/Loomis Agency. (June)
With his amazing portfolio of voices, Michael Boatman draws listeners into PI Easy Rawlins's world in 1970s Los Angeles. Mosley's writing paired with Boatman's narration once again delivers a sociological tableau that keeps listeners engaged throughout. Rawlins accepts a missing-person case from his client, the alluring Amethystine Stoller As Rawlins's attempts to find her open a Pandora's box of corruption in the LAPD, listeners get a window onto Easy's backstory: He grew up a poor Black boy in the Fifth Ward of Houston and then fought in WWII. Boatman skillfully portrays a myriad of characters, smoothly distinguishing genders, ages, and backgrounds and creating the illusion of a full-cast performance. The result is an engaging and immersive listening experience. E.Q. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
2024-03-23
“There I was, a Black man in 1970, driving through the countryside with a corpse in the trunk. I had a trick or two up my sleeve and a loaded .38 in my pocket.” If you had to guess who this speaker might be, it wouldn’t take long before you came around to Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, the endearing private detective who’s the central figure in an absorbing chronicle of urban Los Angeles that’s, so far, spanned four decades. This installment finds business humming so well at Easy’s detective agency that he and his staff can kick back Monday mornings to chat about flu epidemics, Russian spy satellites, and UCLA’s attempt to oust Professor Angela Davis from her job. One bull session is interrupted by the entrance of a sultry young Black woman named Amethystine “Amy” Stoller. She wants Easy to find her ex-husband, a white accountant named Curt Fields, who’s dropped abruptly from sight. Rawlins is getting peculiar vibes from this case, most of them resonating from his younger days back in Houston’s Fifth Ward, where he’d fallen hard for an older woman named Anger Lee. Memories of that bitter affair stalk Easy as he sets out to find Fields—whose body he eventually discovers on an office floor on top of a sealed envelope with the name “Amethystine” scrawled in pencil. Easy could use some help from Melvin Suggs, his one true LAPD friend. Problem is, Suggs is in hiding, on the run trying to protect his wife from being implicated in a capital crime. It spoils little to disclose that the cases are related—and tangled in a welter of desperate gamblers and sleazy blackmailers through which Easy must uneasily navigate as he fends off the usual obstacles of racist cops and violent thugs with help from his friend Fearless Jones. This entry in the Easy epic may sometimes feel a bit by-the-numbers, but in the end, it also feels somewhat like a prelude to a potentially fresh—and dangerous—chapter in Rawlins’ life.
Things are never simple for Easy Rawlins. But his creator remains a master of the genre.
Evocative of both classic noir and 1970s Los Angeles, Mosley’s latest Easy Rawlins story offers wisdom about human connections folded smoothly into page-turning action.”
Booklist (starred review)
With his amazing portfolio of voices, Michael Boatman draws listeners into PI Easy Rawlins’s world in 1970s Los Angeles. Mosley’s writing paired with Boatman’s narration once again delivers a sociological tableau that keeps listeners engaged throughout…Boatman skillfully portrays a myriad of characters…creating the illusion of a full-cast performance. The result is an engaging and immersive listening experience. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
"A prelude to a potentially fresh—and dangerous—chapter in Rawlins’ life. Things are never simple for Easy Rawlins. But his creator remains a master of the genre."—Kirkus Reviews Christine Tran, Booklist, STARRED Publishers Weekly Jamie Canaves, Book Riot Boston Globe Beth Kanell, New York Journal of Books Paula Woods, Los Angeles Times
