November 24, 2014
Set in 1967 Los Angeles, with the Vietnam War dominating the news, the latest book featuring Mosley’s beloved Easy Rawlins finds the private eye interrupted from settling in to his upscale new home by an increasing number of intriguing missing-person investigations. Chief among them is the search for a boxer-turned-political-protestor, last seen in the company of the missing and presumed-kidnapped daughter of munitions baron Foster Goldsmith. Reader Jackson’s cool, unruffled rendition matches the tone of Rawlins’s first-person narration, including the character’s cynical knowledge of the way things work in the racially divided city. For Easy’s LAPD pal Melvin Suggs, whose career has been blighted by his love for a lawbreaker, Jackson replaces the usual police truculence with a boozy haplessness. A long list of vivid characters spring from Mosley’s mind in each novel. Here it includes pugilists, a group of black militants known as Scorched Earth, and the Patty Hearst–like Rosemary Goldsmith. Jackson brings them all to life with admirable versatility. A Doubleday hardcover.
Starred review from July 7, 2014
Set in L.A. during the height of the Vietnam War, Mosley’s impressive 13th Easy Rawlins mystery (after 2013’s Little Green) finds Roger Frisk, special assistant to the police chief, calling on Easy with a job. Rosemary Goldsmith, a student at the University of California in Santa Barbara and the daughter of munitions giant Foster Goldsmith, is missing, perhaps kidnapped. Frisk wants Easy to track down black boxer and political activist Robert Mantle, with whom Rosemary was recently seen in Los Angeles. Easy, “the man to go to if they want their finger on the jugular of the colored community,” accepts the carrot and stick offer only to discover that FBI agents and the State Department are also involved. Along the way, Easy’s trademark ability to trade favors has him helping disgraced cop Melvin Suggs, locating a stolen mixed-race child, and solving a marital problem for his pal Jackson Blue. Easy’s experiences and insights perfectly mirror the turbulent ’60s. Agent: Gloria Loomis, Watkins Loomis Agency.