A Red Death
Walter Mosley, Author W. W. Norton & Company $19.95 (284p) ISBN 978-0-393-02998-7
Mosley's second novel (after Devil in a Blue Dress ) confirms the advent of an extraordinary storyteller. It is five years after the events detailed in the first novel and Easy Rawlins has used the stolen money he kept back in 1948 to purchase a pair of L.A. apartment buildings. There he masquerades as the janitor, quietly enjoying the fruits of ownership and dabbling in private investigation. But he is suddenly in the grip of powerful government forces. When the IRS wants to know where Easy got the money to become a landlord, Easy's sole recourse is to agree to work undercover for the FBI on a witch-hunt to net Reds. The situation presents only the first of the moral dilemmas here: Easy's remorseless, deadly best friend, Mouse, has come to L.A. in pursuit of his ex-wife, EttaMae, who has fled with their young son. Etta, however, is the only woman Easy has ever loved, and she is more than willing to reciprocate--at least on the physical level. Solid and entertaining, the story nonetheless remains secondary to the portrait of a time and a place, to the indelible reality of Easy Rawlins, a black man in a world not yet ready to accept him. Mosley, with his unique talents, may well be in the process of creating a genre classic. BOMC, QPB and Mysterious Book Club selections. (July)
Details
Reviewed on: 07/01/1991
Release date: 07/01/1991
Genre: Fiction
Paperback - 320 pages - 9780743451765
Open Ebook - 272 pages - 9781451612509
Hardcover - 284 pages - 9780393029987
Mass Market Paperbound - 256 pages - 9780671010065
Mass Market Paperbound - 245 pages - 9780671749897
Paperback - 245 pages - 9780671019846
Hardcover - 362 pages - 9781560547235
Prebound-Other - 245 pages - 9781417651399
Mass Market Paperbound - 256 pages - 9780743483407