Easy Rawlins Mystery Series

Book 0

It's 1956 and no one in official Los Angeles pays much attention when three black bar girls are murdered. But when a white stripper is similarly murdered and she turns out to be a UCLA coed and the daughter of a powerful LA prosecutor - all hell breaks loose. The LAPD calls on Easy Rawlins for help, for he can go places and do things the police cannot. Reluctantly, Easy accepts their plea and begins a deadly quest that takes him through the seedy jazz joints of Bone Street and the dingy rooms of Hollywood Row. It is a brutal, dangerous odyssey that jeopardizes his marriage and his life - and leads to a shocking conclusion.

Book 0

A Red Death

by Walter Mosley

Published 25 July 1991

'It has come to my attention, sir, that between August 1948 and September of 1952 you came into possession of at least three real estate properties.? 'I have reviewed your tax records back to 1945 and you show no large income, in any year. This would suggest that you could not legally afford such expenditures...' When an income tax officer makes him an offer he can't refuse, Easy Rawlins is forced out of retirement and into the infiltration of his local church, the First African Baptist, and the surveillance of local radicals. Murderers strike and he becomes the prime suspect of the Los Angeles Police Department, who lose no sleep over the fate of 'freelance' private eyes.

Book 1

Devil in a Blue Dress (30th Anniversary Edition)

by Walter Mosley

Published 6 October 2020

Book 2

A Red Death

by Walter Mosley

Published 1 October 2002

Book 4

Black Betty

by Walter Mosley

Published 15 May 1994

The New York Times Book Review ended its rave for White Butterfly, the most recent novel in Walter Mosley's acclaimed mystery series, by saying "I can't wait to see where Easy Rawlins turns up next. And when". Black Betty holds the sure-to-be-bestselling answer. The place is Los Angeles. The year is 1961, the dawn of a hopeful era for America's black citizens. Easy Rawlins's quiet real-estate empire is deep in the hole, so he must accept $200 from the oily white private eye Saul Lynx to track down one Elizabeth Eady, aka "Black Betty". From her native Houston's Fifth Ward to her position as housekeeper for the immensely wealthy Cain family of Beverly Hills, Betty's stunning beauty and raw sensuality have left a trail of chaos and mayhem in her wake. To compound Easy's troubles, his murderous sidekick Mouse is due out of jail, and he has bloody revenge on his mind. Entertainment Weekly has said that "[Easy] Rawlins isn't just the best new series detective around, he might be the best American character to appear in quite some time". Easy's murder-strewn search for "Black Betty" takes him into the depths of America's racial dilemmas and the mysteries of human character - and his creator, Walter Mosley, to even greater heights of achievement in the American novel. It is that rare novel that tells a gripping, fast-paced story while it grapples with the biggest questions that haunt American life.

Book 5

A Little Yellow Dog

by Walter Mosley

Published 15 June 1996

JFK is president and Ezekiel (aka Easy) Porterhouse Rawlins has a job with the Los Angeles Board of Education. No dogs are allowed on the property of the school where Easy works but Pharaoh, the dog in question, belongs to Idabell Turner, a curvaceous teacher with a husband with murder on his mind. After thirteen minutes of passion, Idabell is gone with only Pharaoh to remind Easy of her... It's a dog's life. Once again, Walter Mosley says profound truths about the state of the nation in a fast page turner laced with drugs, desire and death. Within and without the genre, Walter Mosley is the American writer of our times.

Devil in a Blue Dress

by Walter Mosley

Published 22 August 1990

Devil in a Blue Dress honors the tradition of the classic American detective novel by bestowing on it a vivid social canvas and the freshest new voice in crime writing in years, mixing the hard-boiled poetry of Raymond Chandler with the racial realism of Richard Wright to explosive effect.

Rose Gold

by Walter Mosley

Published 1 January 2014

When four armed policemen turn up at Easy Rawlins's door, he thinks he's in trouble. He is.

They want him to find Rosemary Goldsmith, the daughter of a millionaire arms dealer. And Easy can't afford to say no.

The LAPD think she's with Bob Mantle, a black boxer turned radical. Has she been kidnapped? Is she colluding? When Easy is almost gunned down on his first day on the case, he realises he'll need more than wits to find Rose Gold.

Little Green

by Walter Mosley

Published 1 January 2013

Surviving a near-fatal car wreck and cruising the streets of the Sunset Strip during the heyday of the late 1960s, Easy Rawlins investigates the disappearance of a young African-American, a case that is complicated by Rawlins's changing perspectives.

Little Scarlet

by Walter Mosley

Published 22 June 2004

- Walter Mosley is one of the most acclaimed writers at work today, an original thinker and an important public figure. His new work will command widespread attention.- Easy Rawlins is "the best series detective around" ("Entertainment Weekly).- We last saw Easy in "Bad Boy Brawly Brown, which appeared on the "New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and "USA Today bestseller lists.- Mosley's most recent mystery, "Fear Itself, garnered glowing reviews in the "Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and "New York Times just a few weeks after publication.

Bad Boy Brawly Brown

by Walter Mosley

Published 1 May 2001

Easy Rawlins is out of the investigation business and as far away from crime as a black man can be in 1960s Los Angeles. But living around desperate men means life gets complicated sometimes. When an old friend gets in trouble to ask for Easy?s help, he finds he can?t refuse. Young Brawly Brown has traded in his family for The Clan of the First Men, a group rejecting white leadership and laws. Brown?s mom asks Easy to make sure her baby?s OK, and Easy promises to find him. His first day on the case, Easy comes face-to-face with a corpse, and vefore he knows it he is a murder suspect and in the middle of a police raid. Brawly Brown is clearly the kind of trouble most folks try to avoid. It takes everything Easy has just to stay alive as he explores a world filled with betrayals and predators like he never imagined. Bad Boy Brawly Brown is the masterful crime novel that Walter Mosley?s legions of fans have been waiting for. This book marks the return of a master at the top of his form.

Gone Fishin'

by Walter Mosley

Published 1 January 1997

Houston, 1939. A nineteen-year-old Easy Rawlins and his friend, the dangerous Raymond ?Mouse? Alexander, are about to take the ride of a lifetime - into a mysterious bayou world of voodoo, sex, revenge and death that will both change and link their destinies for ever. The first book Walter Mosley wrote, Gone Fishin' introduces us to the world of Easy and Mouse and shows us the basis of their friendship - quite literally a matter of life or death. Walter Mosley is a major writer of his time - the promise of genius is clear to see in Gone Fishin'.

Charcoal Joe

by Walter Mosley

Published 14 June 2016

IS EASY RAWLINS A MATCH FOR CHARCOAL JOE?
____

Life for Easy Rawlins is surprisingly... easy. He's living off the proceeds of his last case, trying to keep out of trouble. Of course it's not going to last.
___

Because Easy's old friend Mouse knocks on his door. Mouse is one of the deadliest men in America. And Mouse wants a small favour. He wants Easy to help a man he says is wrongly imprisoned, a friend of Charcoal Joe.
___

Charcoal Joe is a mythical figure in the LA underworld - he pulls all the strings but keeps out of sight. Reluctantly, Easy agrees - he owes Mouse his life. But this is no small favour. It's going to be Easy's deadliest investigation yet. It's going to take him from the beaches of Malibu to the shadiest stretches of Sunset in a frenetic adventure through a wild and unrepentant city.

Cinnamon Kiss

by Walter Mosley

Published 1 September 2005

It is the Summer of Love as CINNAMON KISS opens, and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armoured car. It's further outside the law than Easy has ever travelled, but his daughter Feather needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it's a cinch. Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy's problem without jail time. He has to track the disappearance of an eccentric, prominent attorney. His assistant of sort, the beautiful 'Cinnamon' Cargill, has gone as well. Easy can tell there is much more than he is being told - Robert Lee, his new employer, is as suspect as the man who disappeared. But his need overcomes all concerns, and he plunges into unfamiliar territory, from the newfound hippie enclaves to a vicious plot that stretches back to the battlefields of Europe. The New York Times said of Mosley's bestseller, Little Scarlet, 'Nobody, but nobody, writes this stuff like Mosley'. CINNAMON KISS is further proof that he is the absolute master of crime fiction.

Blonde Faith

by Walter Mosley

Published 1 January 2007

Easy Rawlins returns home, thinking as usual about Bonnie. He misses her every day but cannot bring himself to call her: to hear that she is now with another man. At his house he finds the tall and elegant woman-child Feather playing with a living Asian doll - Easter Dawn. She says that her father, Christmas Black, brought her to him and claims that Easy would look after her until his business was over. Easy is puzzled. He owes a lot to the ex-marine; the man saved his life when he was wounded. The fact that he left Easter with him means that Christmas is either dead, or soon will be. A mysterious army captain, Clarence Miles, wearing a suit and tie and a huge smile accosts Easy with two military policemen. They want to hire Easy to find Christmas Black. It's a secret assignment. Easy takes the job for 75 dollars a day plus expenses: gas lodging out of town, meals and any small bribe money (under 21 dollars). Easy feels lost on a darkening sea. The love of his life is getting married to another man, he suddenly has a new daughter, a friend sought for murder, and another friend that he's been hired to betray.
And in all of it he has only one clue: a bumblebee-sized hole in a ceiling and three drops of blood...

Red Death Promotion with Yellow Dog

by Walter Mosley

Published 1 June 1997

Blood Grove

by Walter Mosley

Published 2 February 2021

Ezekiel "Easy" Porterhouse Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of Los Angeles.

But when Easy is approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran- a young white man who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a white woman from a black man- he knows he shouldn't take the case.

Though he sees nothing but trouble in the brooding ex-soldier's eyes, Easy, a vet himself, feels a kinship form between them. Easy embarks on an investigation that takes him from mountaintops to the desert, through South Central and into sex clubs and the homes of the fabulously wealthy, facing hippies, the mob, and old friends perhaps more dangerous than anyone else.

Set against the social and political upheaval of the late 1960s, BLOOD GROVE is ultimately a story about survival, not only of the body but also the soul.

Widely hailed as "incomparable" (Chicago Tribune) and "dazzling" (Tampa Bay Times), Walter Mosley proves that he's at the top of his game in this bold return to the endlessly entertaining series that has kept fans on their toes for years.

Farewell, Amethystine

by Walter Mosley

Published 4 June 2024

IN THE LATEST INSTALLMENT OF THE ACCLAIMED EASY RAWLINS SERIES, EASY IS SENT DOWN MEMORY LANE... BLINDING HIM TO REASON AND RISK, MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE ANYTHING BUT BLACK AND WHITE.

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January 1970. Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, LA's premier Black detective, at 50 years of age despite all expectations. A loving family, a beautiful home, and a thriving investigation agency: all is right with the world.

When Amethystine Stoller - his own personal Helen of Troy - arrives, seeking answers about her ex-husband's disappearance, Easy wants to believe he has a simple case on his hands.

But the investigation sends him on a trip down memory lane: haunted by loss, love, and a hunger that has eaten at him since he was a Black boy on his own on the streets of Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas.

As the case becomes personal, Easy faces a reckoning. A new decade brings with it new expectations: men and women, Black and White, and wrong or right. To save his soul and solve the case, Easy has a big choice to make...

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PRAISE FOR WALTER MOSLEY:

'Simply the best crime writer around today.'
GAURDIAN

'There are few writers within the crime genre who recreate time and place with Mosley's effortless exactness, even fewer who can replicate his masterfully sustained sense of danger.'
SUNDAY TIMES

'This is classic noir territory, filled with unintentional heroes with the best intentions and dangerous dames . . . A class act.'
TIME OUT

'It's Mosley's signature style-rough-hewn, rhythmic, and lyrical-that makes you ready and eager for whatever he's serving up...Let the good times roll.'
KIRKUS REVIEWS

'A mystery master.'
WASHINGTON POST