Little Green

Starred review from February 25, 2013
In 2007’s Blonde Faith, set in 1967, Easy Rawlins drove drunkenly off a cliff in what his creator indicated was likely his last appearance. Now, after two months of sliding in and out of consciousness, Easy begins the long journey back to the living, in Mosley’s superb 12th mystery featuring his iconic sleuth. Saved by Ray “Mouse” Alexander and the ministrations of Mama Jo, Easy is asked by Mouse to find Evander “Little Green” Noon, who went clubbing on the Sunset Strip and disappeared. Weakened but determined to keep moving, Easy is buoyed by Mama Jo’s potent brew she calls “Gator’s Blood” and the support of numerous friends, including Martin Martins and Jackson Blue. Things are changing in L.A., and Easy finds hope in the hippie culture. In the course of his search for Little Green, Easy earns an astonished accolade from Blue, who says he never thought he’d see the day “when Raymond Alexander had to tell Easy Rawlins to hold back.” If there were an Edgar for best comeback player, Easy Rawlins would be a shoo-in. 8-city author tour. Agent: Gloria Loomis, Watkins Loomis Agency.

April 15, 2013
The 1967 Watts riots seem to have slowed down time for Easy Rawlins, who returns only a few weeks after his apparent death at the end of Blonde Faith (2007). That climactic car crash didn't kill Easy, but it left him weak as a kitten and prone to disturbing dreams of past and future. Only repeated drafts of Gator's Blood, the home brew cooked up by healer Mama Jo, allow Easy to escape the ministrations of martinet nurse Antigone Fowler and take to the streets again. As usual, his mission is straightforward--to find Evander Noon, whose mother, Timbale, is a friend of Easy's dangerous best bud Mouse Alexander--but his path is winding. His information takes him to Lula Success' brothel, where Evander dallied before leaving in the company of Maurice Potter. Coco, a prostitute born Helen Ray, leads Easy to Evander, who's been kidnapped by three gangsters and tied to a tree, and the pair, acting swiftly, free Evander and bring him home to his mother. But the conflicts that made those thugs snatch Evander obviously haven't been resolved by his rescue. In order to protect the wayward young man, Easy will have to find the links between insurance giant Proxy Nine, oil company TexOk, and the likes of sneak thief Charles Rumor and all-around nasty operator Haman Rose. Mosley is much more interested in bringing these characters and the social forces they represent to life than in connecting the dots. The result works better as anthropology than mystery, with barely a teaspoon of plot to a monstrous deal of aphorism Whether it's the lingering effects of his near-fatal accident or the infusions of Gator's Blood, Easy sounds less like Watts' signature private eye than one of the visionaries from Mosley's Crosstown to Oblivion novellas (Stepping Stone/The Love Machine, 2013, etc.).

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March 1, 2013
Since sending his series hero Easy Rawlins off a cliff in Blonde Faith (2007), Mosley has dallied with other series and genres, with varying degrees of success. Through it all, though, most Mosley fans were pining for the resurrection of Rawlins. Their dreams have come true. It turns out that Easy's misguided suicide went awry, thanks to the intervention of Mouse, Easy's best friend and the most dangerous man in L.A. As this novel begins, it's 1967, and Easy has just awakened from a coma to find Mouse at his bedside with a plan to get his pal back in the PI game. A beaker or two of God-knows-what from voodoo master Mama Jo's home brew, and Easy is following a missing boy's trail to the Sunset Strip, now the home turf of flower children, whom the shell-shocked detective finds an oddly supportive lot: I'd driven my Pontiac off a cliff and landed in a new world. Mosley returns here to doing what he does best: setting the pain and pleasure of individual lives, lived mostly in L.A.'s black community, within an instantly recognizable historical moment and allowing the two to feed off one another. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The return of Easy Rawlins is a major event for crime-fiction fans, and Mosley's publisher will be making sure the news is spread widely.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)