When Walter Mosley’s words come to life on the page, the velvety sound of Coleman Hawkins’ tenor sax plays in my head as a kind of virtual soundtrack to Easy Rawlins’ dangerous footfalls on the streets of Los Angeles.
But have we seen the last of our favorite hot-tempered gumshoe?
Little, Brown’s September publication of “Blonde Faith,” the 10th in the much-beloved Easy Rawlins series – has also been rumored to be the end of an era.
Readers have been through a lot over the years with Ole Easy, but “Blonde Faith” shows us a man with vulnerabilities.
Don’t get it wrong. Easy hasn’t gone soft. It takes a big man to realize when he’s made a mistake, and the pages of this mystery are tinged with remorse. Remorse? Easy Rawlins?
It’s true: The private detective knows deep down he’s wrong for not forgiving his lover, Bonnie, for having an affair. The agony over losing her is tearing him up, but he still can’t let go of the past, and it’s torturing him.
“Thinking of Bonnie was the turn that guaranteed me another sleepless night. Once (she) entered my mind there was no possibility for repose. She was the book I couldn’t put down; a life savings I had lost; the question I could not answer.”
In putting a few of Easy’s secret vulnerabilities “on front street,” Mosley only deepens readers’ love for the man who barely deserves to be called a character – he feels so real.
The sadness Easy grapples with plays a delicate counterpoint to the story at the heart of “Blonde Faith,” a book that’s easily the best of the bunch. Time and again, he puts his life on the line to locate two of his missing friends, slipping in and out of tar-paper juke joints and upscale white restaurants with all the panache we’ve come to expect from our hero.
And yet he manages to do all of this while juggling a household bursting to the seams with adopted children he’s pulled under his wings.
Loyalty is a kind of religion for Mosley, and upholding its tenets is at the core of all of Easy’s movements. Nowhere has this been more evident than in his ardent search for Raymond “Mouse” Alexander, the one man who’s always been a fixture in his life.
“He was a ladies man, a philanderer, a fabulous raconteur, a stone cold killer, and probably the best friend I ever had. … He was the kind of man who stood there beside you through blood and fire, death and torture. No one would ever choose to live in a world where they’d need a friend like Mouse, but you don’t choose the world you live in or the skin you inhabit. …”
There is more than a mere street code that forms the bond between these men; it is Mosley’s own special brand of brotherly love, impenetrable even to the women in their respective lives.
Without Mouse around as backup, however, Easy is in more danger than ever. After all, this is 1967 and Los Angeles seethes with racial disharmony in the wake of the Watts riots.
Still, nobody could accuse Easy of being a chump, and even if he has to bob and weave like a boxer to avoid confrontation with whites in positions of authority, his self- respect – no, his sense of superiority – always remains intact.
When a police car passes, its driver slowing to stare out the window at him, he does a quick self- check. “Me: Dark as the approaching night, tall, in shape enough for one good round with a journeyman light heavyweight, dressed in a deep gray suit that fit me at least as well as the English language.”
Danger passes Easy Rawlins by – this time.
Ultimately, whether Easy returns for another act after “Blonde Faith” is something readers will have to discover on their own. Whatever the outcome, Mosley has created a flesh-and-blood man who transcends the pages he traverses, and he can walk with that same smooth finesse in the world of our imagination.
Just don’t be surprised if there’s a little horn accompaniment.
Andrea Hoag is a Lawrence, Kan., book critic whose reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, USA Today and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications.
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FICTION
Blonde Faith, by Walter Mosley, $25.99
