Black Betty (An Easy Rowlins Mystery)

Rating:
Summary: Easy Rawlins Is An Easy Read
Review: Easy Rawlins is a complex character. I enjoy getting to know him better in each of Mosley's books. But because Walter Mosley has such a wonderful talent for character development, I probably will never have Easy figured out completely. What amazes me about these books is that they read like a serial but any one of them can stand on it's own without any long, detailed introductions or explanations. Black Betty does not disappoint. Easy juggles several situations at once and manages to bring order and justice to his world by the end of the book. I think the most endearing quality of Easy's is the love and care he gives to his kids, Jesus and Feather. The time spent with his family gives a good balance to the darker side of his life on the streets. There are some big surprises in this story...some good and some sad and good at the same time. I bought this book a long time ago and saved it until the next Easy Rawlings book came out so I could read them both at the same time because when I finish a Walter Mosley book I always want more. I wish he could write 'em as fast as I can read 'em

Rating:
Summary: Dead Heat
Review: Raymond Chandler made the definitive statement about L.A.'s Santa Ana Winds at the beginning of his short story "Red Wind." In Easy Rawlins' L.A., the hot, dry winds that fill the lungs with cactus dust and make the skin peel around the fingernails never seem to stop.

Easy is in search of an erotic dream woman from his childhood who is being sought by one of those rich white families who have more skeletons than clothes in their closets. Around the same time, the very dangerous Raymond "Mouse" Alexander is released from the pen; and Easy's attempt to make a killing in the real estate market run up against a brick wall.

There are plot threads aplenty, and enough characters to fill a passenger liner. Mosley is too good a writer to leave any threads untied, but I do get lost at times with some of the characters. One bad dude is not heard from for a hundred pages when he commits a particularly heinous murder at the very end. "Oh, yeah, wasn't he the guy that ...?" Sometimes, I would have welcomed the list of characters, complete with nicknames, that occasionally accompanies an 800-page Russian novel.

What makes this a minor complaint is that Mosley has such a great sense of place and so much feeling for his characters. We don't meet the character he calls "Black Betty" until the end of the novel, but we keep seeing vignettes from Easy's past that keep building up the suspense, and any expectations are more than fulfilled by an ending that is bloodier than the last act of Hamlet.