Easy Rawlins never expected his life to be, well, easy. But over time, the experiences of this sharecropper’s son have brought him long stretches of promise, snippets of hope, signs of contentment along with changes to the African-American community. Through it all, Easy always has wondered if persistent racism, bigotry and ignorance could ruin everything.
In “Cinnamon Kiss,” the initial threat doesn’t come from the flawed nature of human beings. Easy’s adopted daughter, Feather, has a mysterious illness, and the only hope appears to be an expensive Swiss clinic. To pay his child’s medical bills, Easy considers robbing an armored car with his lethal friend, Mouse. A colleague offers Easy a legal option with an eccentric San Francisco private detective – find a prominent attorney who has gone missing with his assistant (the Cinnamon of the title) and a suitcase filled with documents.
So in 1966, Easy leaves Los Angeles, still reeling from the aftermath of the Watts Riots, for San Francisco where hippies roam the streets, Vietnam protests are heating up, and a new generation challenges the ways of the old guard. Against this backdrop, Easy is desperate for money, but the men he will investigate have a darker greed that taints their souls and will force Easy to remember the atrocities of World War II.
Though not as sophisticatedly plotted as last year’s “Little Scarlet,” “Cinnamon Kiss” delivers a suspense-filled tale, shedding insight on the recent past.
With the Easy Rawlins character as his everyman, Walter Mosley has chronicled the black experience in each novel, starting in post-World War II America with “Devil With a Blue Dress.” In “Cinnamon Kiss,” he captures the mid-’60s with a fervor and vividness that has been a hallmark of the 10 novels in this series. Mosley illustrates how the war protests and the Haight Ashbury culture was evolving into a time when the country increased its attention to civil rights.
Easy, now in his mid-40s, finds a kinship with the hippies, who look at him not as a black man but as a person.
Easy continues to be among crime fiction’s most intriguing characters, a man notable for his compassion, his flaws and a unique perspective. The damage he endures is never enough to break his pride or his spirit.
From a storytelling standpoint, “Cinnamon Kiss” loses steam in its last quarter. As Easy gets closer to solving the case, Mosley stops weaving in his themes of racism and tolerance into the plot and instead preaches.
The action becomes muddled and the dialogue loses its crispness. Yet this does not diminish a hard-charging, intricate story. Mosley captures the flavor of the times that were rapidly a-changing. From occasional asides and dialogue, Mosley has let his readers know that Easy is recounting these stories from the serenity of old age. “Cinnamon Kiss” gives us another reason to continue this journey with Easy.
