Monday, October 8, 2018

Nice and Easy...with a Convoluted Plot

Blonde Faith (Easy Rawlins #11)Blonde Faith by Walter Mosley
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another solid addition to the Easy Rawlins series.

I've read books from three of Walter Mosley's series and private detective Rawlins is so far my favorite character. He's old shoe comfort, easy like Sunday morning, and a good mix of thoughtful and tough. His courage makes sense and his honor is admirable.

I really like that these books are set just after LA's Watts riots of '65 when the city was in racial tumult. It adds tension to just about every scene.

Blonde Faith has a more convoluted plot than others in the series that I've read and I dug it. It played well off of Easy's concerns for his family.

Strongly recommended.

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Easy on the Hippies

Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery (Easy Rawlins #12)Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery by Walter Mosley
Reviewed by Jason Koivu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series is one of my "comfort food" reads. And it's not even a guilty pleasure like so many of my other comfort reads, because Mosley is a damn good writer and he's got it all going on with these books! I love the characters, setting, pacing, plotting...it's all good!

It's the late 60s in LA. Hippy culture is everywhere, but the peace and love message that started in San Francisco has got mixed up with weirdos, drugs and crime down in the City of Angels. Black detective and WWII vet Rawlins is just getting over a very serious car accident that put him out of commission for two months. He comes in and out of a coma like a junkie trying to get clean. Everything's a bit hazy at best.

As a favor for a friend, he goes looking for a missing young man on the Sunset Strip and comes into contact with all manner of colorful characters. You can tell Mosley is having fun reliving his memories of LA during this period. I believe he was finishing up high school in South Central at the time all this would have taken place. Much of his past has been poured into this series.

Little Green, the 12th Rawlins book, keeps this beautiful soul train rolling down the tracks. It's so very solid, yet it's not without fault. For one, the "mystery" is solved halfway through, and yet the story keeps going. Yes, there are reasons for it, but it does give a reader a strange feeling when you're midway through and you've essentially already arrived at the end, only to be told there's a new destination and you've got to keep going. But it's a minor quibble, because having to read more of this glorious writing is no chore!

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