I love me some Easy Rawlins! When Walter Mosley let loose another round with Easy I was there to pick up the pieces; Six Easy Pieces.

Six Easy Pieces is a book of seven different stories reminding fans of who Ezekiel Rawlins is (as if we had forgotten) and what he does that makes us love him so. Mosley shows us a forty-four year old man who over time has become a senior janitor at Sojourner Truth Junior High School, a property owner, the father of two, and the lover of one. Despite all of that, each story has a friend needing his help and in spite of himself Easy ends up in the middle of all the action.

Mr. Mosley moves Easy easily through the city of Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California. He is involved with a little bit of everyone doing a little bit of everything. In the story Smoke, Easy investigates arson at his school, in Crimson Stain he investigates the death of a prostitute who found religion, in Lavender he is chasing after a Black boy with his nose wide open behind a flirtatious rich White girl, and in Gray Eyed-Death his past comes bursting back on the scene with a vengeance. These are just four of the seven exciting stories.

Easy Rawlins fans will enjoy this book because Mosley gives you small pieces of Easy and his friends in well told stories and good pacing to keep you reading until the end. This is especially good for those who want to satisfy a small itch but have limited time to read a whole Easy Rawlins Mystery. Those who haven't read Easy Rawlins Mysteries before will get recaps to bring you up to speed but will probably find yourself needing to read the other books to get a complete picture. (And that is not a bad thing.) Walter Mosley does it again and I just want him to keep doing it over and over and over again.

Kotanya
APOOO BookClub

I HAVE READ ALL THE MOSLEY BOOKS, ERGO: PRIOR TO SIX EASY PIECES, THE BOOK "BAD BOY BRAWLY BROWN" WAS SPECTACULAR, & YOU WILL FIND SIX EASY PIECES NEARLY AS GOOD, AS IT PICKS UP WHERE BAD BOY LEAVES OFF. EACH "STORY" IS CIRCA 50 PAGES, AND SMOOTHLY BLENDS INTO THE NEXT ONE. THERE IS A WONDERFUL CONTINUITY AND MANY QUESTIONS THE READER MAY HAVE ABOUT EASY AND MOUSE ARE RESOLVED. CONSIDERABLE ACTION IS SEEN IN THE BOOK AND A VERY MATURE EASY RAWLINS DEVELOPS,WHO COMES TO TERMS WITH MANY A PROBLEM, BUT REALIZES HE NEEDS TO "BE ON THE STREETS". I USUALLY AVOID SHORT STORIES BUT THIS IS ,IN EFFECT, A FULL LENGTH EASY RAWLINS NOVEL, CERTAINLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. 1/11/03

This collection includes one new and six previously published longish short stories featuring one of Walter Mosley's most fascinating characters, Easy Rawlins, a man who grew up more or less on his own and who has had his difficulties with the other side of the law at least partly because of his childhood friend, Mouse, who is a killer. He is, like Mosley's other character, Socrates Fortlow, trying to keep his life together in spite of the odds.

He functions as a sort of unofficial detective who gets involved in the troubles of people who might not otherwise go to the police with their problems, and as such he serves a real purpose in this gritty urban scene. Of course, Easy has been the protagonist in seven Mosley novels by now. These short stories fill in some of the gaps in his life history and as such contain background and psychological material that I think would be important for readers of the novels.

I have been a faithful reader of the Easy Rawlins mystery series since 1994 when a friend turned me on to them. I had just moved to Los Angeles and she thought it would be a good way to introduce me to the history of the city. Boy was she right! This latest novel was fast paced, thoughtful and a thoroughly good read. I couldn't put it down and spent the weekend with Easy as he tries to help his friend John and snatch himself back from the depression that has plagued him since the "death" of his best friend, Mouse. I love the addition of his love interest, Bonnie, who is Easy's equal in every way and a good balance to his loner ways as the seeker of information and solver of problems. All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing back Easy and let's not wait so long for the next one Mr. Mosley!

Finally, after a long wait, Walter Mosley has given us the next installment in the Easy Rawlins mystery series. And, no surprise, Bad Boy Brawly Brown does not disappoint.

Set among the gang wars and internal race politics of Compton, California, Bad Boy Brawly Brown is the story of a young man caught up in a political movement that becomes something too big for him to handle. The boy, however, happens to be the stepson of Easy's close friend, John.

When Brawly runs off to join the Urban Revolutionary Party (kind of like the Black Panthers), John gets worried and asks Easy to help him out. What follows is a tense, urban thriller where Easy (haunted by the voice of his maybe dead friend Mouse) is trying to save Brawly before he sinks too deeply into the shady underworld of Compton.

Mosley has, yet again, created soem incredibly real characters with complicated, yet believable, problems. One of the best elements of Bad Boy Brawly Brown is the exploration of the father-son relationship between Easy and his son Juice in parallel with John and Brawly. This added character development elevtaes BBBB above the genre mysteries and keeps Mosley at the top of his field.

For anyone who likes some brains with their mysteries, Walter Mosley is the man.

Easy Rawlins is still trying to accept the alleged death of his long time friend and companion, Raymond " Mouse" Alexander. For three months, Easy is haunted by his own thoughts and doubts - "He's dead becuase of me" and he is in a deep depression. Until he receives a call from John, a freind from Houston who simply wants him to find his step-son, Brawley.

In his search for Brawley, Easy enters the world of the Urban Revolutionary, a political group that wants to make life better for the residents of Compton. But there is somehting else going that only Easy can uncover. Through his investigation, readers become reacquainted with Mofass, Jewelle, Odell, Jesus, Feather and the little yellow dog. As Easy searches the dark streets of Compton he recalls lessons he has learned from Mouse and surprisingly one from Fearless Jones that helps him understand the man that he has become.

There are plenty of concurrent themes throughout the novel - father/son relationship, foster children, children growing up without parents, grief, depression, child abuse, greed and a parents love for their children. Mosley tied them all together to give his readers a wonderful, suspense novel.

What can you say about Walter Mosley! Not enough! He is an extraordinary writer and we are glad to have him and Easy back! You'll find each page is a cliff hanger. Mosley has a way of giving you just enough to make you turn the page to find out more. But pay attention - because as soon as you think you have it solved - you realize that you Mosley is and will always be the Master of mysteries.

Peace and Blessings!!

There aren't many good African American mystery writers and there are even fewer black private eyes that you'd want to read about. Walter Mosley and Easy Rawlins, however, satisfy both of those criteria in solid fashion. More than that, though, this is simply a good, fun read .

The setting is Los Angeles in the 1940s, probably the most fruitful noir time and place there is. During those boom years of post-war expansion, a man could make a good living and even buy a place of his own.

That's all that Easy Rawlins wants. When he's laid-off, though, he can't make his mortgage. He's going to lose his house and he'd rather do almost anything than that. He finds, though, that he has to do more than he bargained for.

When a mysterious white man offers him $100 to find a missing white woman, it seems simple enough. Nothing, of course, is ever as it seems. Rawlins quickly finds himself in trouble and there is no easy way out. It takes a hardness that he tries to hide for him to come out alive.

For a first novel, this book is very solid with a lot of personality. Mosley captures a people and culture that we don't get to read much about. Easy is a good, fresh character; one of the best new entries to the mystery scene in a while.

This book is recommended to everyone who enjoys a good hard-boiled mystery, especially fans of Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, and Ross Macdonald

Set in post-war Los Angeles, Walter Mosley's debut novel Devil in a Blue Dress is a riveting story that makes you want to read the whole series. Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran who wants nothing more than to pay his mortgage on time. This is difficult because he has been recently fired from his job at an airline factory. He thinks that his problem has been solved when a white man offers to pay a fair sum of money for him to locate Daphne Monet, a young white woman who likes to frequent black bars. But when two people are murdered, including his friend Corretta, he must do his best to save Daphne and himself. Mosley has stunning descriptions of Los Angeles that put you into the book. You can hear the characters talking when you read the dialog. I couldn't put Devil in a Blue Dress down. It it is perfect for mystery lovers or those just looking for a good entertaining book.

Easy Rawlins is not the typical private detective, but he is the freshest one to come around in a long time. Easy is an African American WWII veteran from Texas, now living in 1948 L.A. where he proudly owns a modest home. The home is all he has to be proud of since he got fired from his job at a defense plant. Life for Easy is not easy at all. Then one day, a white man dressed in a white suit offers Easy good money to locate a beautiful blonde known to hang out at black clubs. For a man with a mortgage and no money coming in, the offer is too good to be true. But then offers like this usually are.

The plot sounds typical, but Mosley's writing is anything but. Mosley paints a clear and atmospheric picture of racial segregation in post-war L.A., but that picture is not overexposed. Easy not only has to endure the dangers of finding this girl, he must do it in a hostile background where white policemen and higher-ups look for any type of crime that they might pin on him. The story of the transplanted man from the south living on the west coast is not unfamiliar, but making him a black man facing prejudice on every side makes the story more alive and the plot more tension-filled. Again, this is not done in a heavy-handed way, but with a subtle touch that makes you want to turn the pages.

Mosley is very much at home with the hard-boiled style of crime noir and it shows on every page. This is not a Hammett or Chandler re-hash. This is a fresh, lively, exciting mystery from a very fine writer. If you haven't experienced Mosley and Easy Rawlins, pick up the Blue Dress and try it on for size.

215 pages

'We [the working class] are marginalized by the profit of capitalism. We are footnotes to Citibank and the Mobil Oil Corporation and Chiquita Brands International (once know as the United Fruit Company).' --Walter Mosely

Because I have read and advocated the analysis, ideas, and visions of Jesus, Karl Marx, Fedel Castro, Dorothy Day, Kwame Nkrumah, Rosa Luxanburg, and Mother Jones, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, and Paulo Friere, and many others, I didn't find much new in this work by Walter Mosley. However, it was refreshing to see a fiction writer with skill, talent, and insight, attempt to give a piece of his mind in an honest, direct way.

I'm not sure how people who are fans of Mosley's best selling fictional works will read this, his first non-fiction book. But I would suggest that despite its brevity and lack of development, this book would make a great book club discussion. It's packed with enough insight and ideas for contemporary political thought that it might indeed lead readers to ponder life beyond their American Dream homes, automobiles, household gadgets, and Kodak moments.

Mosely makes sharp criticism of an American capitalist society which essentially puts profits before people and consumption before real needs. Thus, while people starve and receive medical care in this the richest country in the world, 5% of the population holds at least half the wealth in the country. There are people in this country who make say $5000 an hour when they go to work, while the rest of the population gets by on two-family incomes, over-time hours, and two-jobs salaries. And this says nothing about the poorest parts of the world where a bar of soap and toothpaste are luxury items.

As Mosely reminds us, 'We know how much money every armed bandit has stolen from banks but almost nothing about how much the banks have stolen from us. We are told, during the commercial, how much some piece of clothing costs, but the returning anchor refrains from telling us what economic havoc we have caused in the third world by paying slave wages to local workers to make the price attractive [and profitable].'

Mosely attempts to give his view of an ideal system that would replace capitalism. But here he falls short. He regrets the doesn't 'know the exact steps that need to be taken to free us from our entanglements.' He's not even sure it's possible. But when tries to say that 'everyone has a right to a living wage, a right to competent medical care, and a share in the natural resources that the nation either owns or creates,' he sounds to me, as I understand it, like he's a calling for a socialist system--though he dismisses early on in his book Marxism and communism as failed ideologies. That's too bad. For I think if he had put more thought into a socialist transformation of society, he could have provided his readers with more to think about.

Instead, he suggest that readers contemplate their visions for a better world. But I bet when people do that, it will simply sound more like individualistic, capitalist visions of society. It's not that we shouldn't contemplate our own visions, but I suggest that it's not that we, as Mosely suggest, need to make a list of 'what it is that you deserve for a lifetime of labor,' but that we need to involve ourselves in a process of political education. We need political reading groups in our places of worship, our colleges, communities, and places of employment. As we politically educate ourselves, we can begin to ask ourselves what could I do with other in an organized manner to work for what I think is just and right.

This political education process could begin with Mosely work.

I believe that Walter Mosley is the greatest author I have ever read. That is no small feat. His works of fiction paint a picture so vivid, I find myself believing and becoming his characters.

Workin' on the chain gang is a different story. This book has changed my way of thinking. Mosley references to the human's quick judgement i.e. the blue car, the dead tree. This is what causes most of our problems with other people.

I now see that the "people" I see everyday, are not limited to their physical frames. That is not really them at all. They are a consciousness that is so deeply rooted, that they themselves may not be fully aware of it.

This book should be read to children everywhere and taught in every school. To let this genius go unnoticed would be a travesty.

Once again, Walter Mosley pitches a great game. This book may be light in physical weight, but it is full of heavy thinking.

Mosley examines modern American culture in a way that probably seems heretical to most Americans. Mosley asks his readers to do things most people would never seriously (I mean really seriously) consider.

The light stuff includes viewing people as individuals, not skin colors. Getting to know someone before passing mental judgement on them. Treating everyone with respect, until a person gives you reason to do otherwise. Ensuring all the elderly and all children have adequate food and medical care. Yeah, everyone's with Mosley on those ideas; if not deep inside, at least the majority of Americans realize that is the way it should be.

However, can you name three close friends or family members whom you could convince to give up all television for three months? How about a season's moritorium from sporting events and sports news? While you're at it, locate a group of friends also willing to forgo other forms of LCD (lowest common denominator) entertainment.

If you find it easy to contemplate abandoning those activities, Mosley has another suggestion for you. Let's dump capitalism as a way of life, as a staple of American society. There, are you still with me? Your job is slowly killing you. Going to work daily is like going to the plantation, except the whip has been replaced with credit card debt . . . that is, if you're lucky enough to have a credit card. By eagerly participating in the world as it is, you are no less brainwashed and perversly dependent than a woman who stays with a physically abusive man.

Perhaps even more amazing than the fact that Mosley considers and suggests such actions, is that he presents a convincing argument for all of his suggestions. You may not always agree with Mosley (though I did), but he always presents a logical line of thinking.

Once again, Mosley has produced a book that I am recommending to everyone I know. So far, Mosley is pitching a perfect game.

This is the first Walter Mosley book I have read. Everybody seems to be rating this author very highly and say that his books are amazing. I'm not convinced. It seems like an ordinary mystery story to me. The dialogue and language is a lot more relaxed than you would find in most books which makes it easy to read. Nevertheless, I found a lot of it hard to follow and found that I got bored with it very easily even though I did manage to finish it. It is worth reading but don't expect anything special because it really isn't. The characters are very believable but they suffer from a disjointed and in some ways unbelieveable story. Make your own mind up. I prefer John Grisham every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

This is the second Easy Rwalings book, a series by Walter Mosley.
It's a short and fast-paced book, easy to read. There are two problems with Easy Rawlings, though. As happens with all Mosley books, the plots are kind of misty, you just don't know for sure what Rawlings must do or discover through the story. Other thing I find extremely annoying is that, except Rawlings, other characters are completely undeveloped, they're just names thrown into the story, making it a little confusing, you almost never know who is who and what part they seem to take in the plot.

Easy Rawlings is a funny character, though a little too stupid. He acts before he thinks. Mosley thinks this is a means to provide action in the book and it works well, but I thought Easy was rather obtuse sometimes. But maybe Mosley just wanted to create a story as close to reality as possible. As in "Devil in a blue dress", the most interesting character is Mouse, Easy's friend, a murderer without scruples, who should get a book of his own.

I'll give a try to "White Butterfly", the next book in the series.

Grade 7.3/10

This was my first Walter Mosley novel. I had not done any reading for fun for some time. This book engulfs the reader in the world that Easy Rawlins exists in. All characters are beautifully distinct and colorful. You will truly enjoy this book.

Mosley, Walter. Gone Fishin'. Black Classics. Jan. 1997. 244pages. ISBN 1-57478-025-5. $22. There can be no better way to start off the year than with Easy Rawlins. Fans already needing a fix after Mosley's recent "A Little Yellow Dog" get happy, Easy and Mouse are back in this "prequel" to the series. This latest novel is actually Mosley's original Easy/Mouse story written in the late 80s but never released. Gone Fishin' follows the classic search for father motif-literally for Mouse and figuratively for the 19-year-old Rawlins who finds himself a very un-Easy rider on a road trip to Pariah, TX, to strong-arm Mouse's step daddyReese for money. Easy quickly lands up to here in trouble that includes witchcraft, fevered sex, a fleeing killer, and a few dead bodies. While Mouse is facing down his wicked stepfather, Easy must exorcise the demons of his own past in order to achieve a coming of age that's steeped in blood, guilt, and forgiveness. Not a straight mystery like earlier volumes in the series, Gone Fishin' is a more spiritual novel that reaches into the characters' pasts to reveal their souls. Mosley delivers the goods every time and Easy fans are going to eat this up. Highly recommended.-Michael Rogers,

Though it was originally meant to be the first book in the Easy Rawlins series, _Gone Fishin'_ is only now seeing the light of day. Fans of Walter Mosley's series will want to read this book, as it provides important background information on his characters Easy and Mouse. Not a mystery per se, this book gives us a convincing and moving coming of age story that explains a lot about the adult Easy and his friend Mouse, filling in important details that are only hinted at in the rest of the series

If you're looking for a true summer adventure--and you happen to be a fan of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series--don't miss this one. "Gone Fishin'" is a prequel to the other novels--it begins in Houston in the late 1930's where Easy and his murderous pal Mouse are two young black men looking for fortune in a white man's world. That leads them on trip into the dark recesses of the East Texas Piney Woods, where the city boys discover there's plenty of sex, black magic and killing out under the trees. Mosley wonderfully captures the dialect of that region from that era--to me, it had a familiar ring. To others, it may require a bit of concentration, but it's worth the effort. With "Gone Fishin'", Mosley has created a grownup "Huck Finn" style adventure that reads like a movie. If you're like me, after Denzel Washington's portrayal of Easy in "Devil In A Blue Dress", you see Denzel in your head whenever you're reading about Easy Rawlins. Imagine him as a youngster--not yet the cool sleuth he'll become later in LA--and you've got the character Mosley creates for "Gone Fishin'". The only bad thing I can say about this book is that I was finished with it before I wanted to be.

Nine Stories of an Imminent World is about life in America a generation from now which isn't that different except the drugs are better & the daily grind is worse; justice is now delivered by automated courts & the Supreme Court has decreed that constitutional rights don't apply to anyone who challenges the system.

If your mind is not open when you start Futureland, Walter Mosley will use the crowbar of his words to pry the lid off before he's done with you. He makes you think & he makes you step beyond the stereotypes & look at where they came from.

This near-future science fiction thriller held me firmly in its grasp from the fly leaf to the last page. Every chapter is an individual story yet when all is read & done - it is very well done!

This is an engrossing, compelling book, full of great inssights, and painted against a credible, dark, and wonderfully ominous future landscape. In reading other reviews, I am surprised by the level of criticism, even though much of it is on point. Yes, the race element is at times a little heavy handed, in the last story in especially. Yes, there are places where the story line could be tightened, or is a little predictable--but not often, and not much. But these problems are minor compared to the thrill of exploring a fascinating future world, populated by fresh, fascinating, characters. This is WOW science fiction, like we rarely get. Perhaps the criticisms are a functin of how much Mosley achieved. He's a stone's throw from having created a truely GREAT Science Fiction book, in the Asimov, Heinlien, Clark pantheon. And ok, it is NOT at that level. But at times it comes really close. If you like SciFi, read it. You'll be glad you did.

In the not-too-distant future, major corporations have taken over the functions of the state and most workers have been reduced to a perpetual treadmill between subsistence work and a barely livable unemployment. For criminals and anyone who opposes the omnipresent corporate state, punishment is swift, certain, and enforced with dispassionate unconcern for rights or human dignity.

Author Walter Mosley's nine inter-related stories tell of this near-future and, especially, of the position of blacks in a supposedly racially integrated world. While occasional anarchistic resistance can slow the forces of capitalism run beyond any rules (and FUTURELAND is filled with stories of this resistance), the overall tendency of history cannot be stopped.

Although FUTURELAND was written before the events of 9/11, the encroachments on liberties that Mosley forecast in these stories appear far less paranoid and far more near at hand than they could have to the average reader when Mosley wrote them. Readers do not have to agree with Mosley's dark message, nor share his fears about neo-Nazis ready to cleanse the world of non-white blood, to see the frightening possibilities that Mosley shares.

In the initial story in this series, Whispers in the Dark, Mosley adopts a dialect-heavy style that makes reading difficult. Stick with FUTURELAND. The payoff is worth the effort and Mosley's later stories are far more approachable, from an ease of reading perspective, if even darker from their take on the world.