Customer Reviews

A Little Yellow Dog

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Can a book have atmosphere? If it can, then this book has it. The descriptions of the school yard took me back, in a flash, to my elementary school in Long Beach, California years ago. Do you remember school rooms in bungalows? And tetherball? Mosley is absolutely THE master of dialogue. Sometimes too much of one author can get tiresome, but not in this case. I read BLACK BETTY just before this book and the dialogue continues to be fresh and sparkling. I enjoyed the dry humor sprinkled throughout the story. It suits Easy very well and I'd like to see more of it in future books. The foray into the culinary experience was another new addition that I liked a lot. The main story line held together well and moved along almost effortlessly. I finished this book yesterday and I still don't know how I feel about the ending. I'm sure it will stay with me for a long while. Walter Mosley is one of the best authors around today, in my opinion. I eagerly await the next installment in the saga of Easy Rawlins

Can a book have atmosphere? If it can, then this book has it. The descriptions of the school yard took me back, in a flash, to my elementary school in Long Beach, California years ago. Do you remember school rooms in bungalows? And tetherball? Mosley is absolutely THE master of dialogue. Sometimes too much of one author can get tiresome, but not in this case. I read BLACK BETTY just before this book and the dialogue continues to be fresh and sparkling. I enjoyed the dry humor sprinkled throughout the story. It suits Easy very well and I'd like to see more of it in future books. The foray into the culinary experience was another new addition that I liked a lot. The main story line held together well and moved along almost effortlessly. I finished this book yesterday and I still don't know how I feel about the ending. I'm sure it will stay with me for a long while. Walter Mosley is one of the best authors around today, in my opinion. I eagerly await the next installment in the saga of Easy Rawlins.

A Little Yellow Dog was the first Walter Mosley book I've ever read, and the first mystery I've read written by an African-American. From page one, I was hooked. It wasn't so much that the book was a Mystery, per se, but it was the writing style of Mosley that charmed me. I now see what people are referring to when they compliment Mosley's talent: he's quick witted, intelligent, detailed but doesn't over do it, puts you in the room, on the street, in the car, whereever the characters are, Mosley puts you there with them. He has the funniest expressions, just short little simple sentences that are profound and delightful. Since then, I have purchased a couple more books of his and look forward to enjoying them as well. I highly recommend Walter Mosley mysteries to people who just like good writing, lots of fast moving scenes, and thought-provoking, emotional, and funny, witty lines.

By no means would I call myself a big fan of mystery novels, but I really enjoyed this book. Walter Mosley did a superb job of developing very interesting and memorable characters who really a lot to the story. Also, Mosley did a wonderful job with the plot. Despite what "A reader from Oregon" claims, the story does not "lag, drag, and fizz out." This novel has an exceptionally captivating plot, even for a non-mystery fan such as myslef. There were enough twists and turns to keep me guessing until the end!

I normally do not read many mystery novels, and this is actually my first Walter Mosley novel. And even now, I wouldn't say that I am "hooked." But I will likely read more of his novels and maybe even read the whole Easy Rawlings series. If you are a fan of Mosely and/or mysteries, you will surely enjoy this!

If you love Walter Mosley's books as I do, you will also appreciate Chester Himes. (Search for his name on Amazon.com.) I have read every book that Walter Mosley has published, usually in one sitting, from cover to cover. I only wish he had something more for me to read, now that I've read all of his books.

If you feel likewise, you too will appreciate Chester Himes. He was a forerunner of Mosley, a black author from New York City during the Harlem Renaissance. He wrote about crime and mystery, blacks succeeding in a racist climate, and about Harlem, NY. Like Walter Mosley, he had very sympathetic central characters, with whom many of us can identify. Check out Chester Himes too. You won't be disappointed.

Easy Rawlins is the most unique protagonist in the mystery genre. He is always trying to get ahead without drawing unfavorable attention to himself. Whenever he seems to be making progress, crime and violence dog his footsteps . . . soon bringing the LAPD behind them to hassle him. If this sounds familiar, there is a good chance that Jean Valjean of Les Miserables is the real inspiration for Easy Rawlins.

Having grown up in Southern California at the time Mosley is writing about, I am very impressed with his ear for language and his eye for detail about those time. In A Little Yellow Dog, Easy has moved into the 1960s and is operating closer to the legal side than ever before.

He soon finds himself surrounded by corpses, accusations, and the potential to lose his job, his children, and his freedom. Faced with those terrible consequences, he returns to his old friends for help in unraveling a satisfying mystery.

Clearly, part of the appeal of this book is that Easy's vantage point on America is different from that of most readers. He is a black man with community connections to those who bend and break the law, yet he is a good man. How he will resolve the conflicts that inevitably occur due to his personal values, commitments to others, and the racisim of his society provides a satisfying look at the true nobility of man. That's what takes this book well beyond the normal well-written mystery.

I liked the way that Easy developed as a person in this novel, bridging the gap between his aspirations and his former life. This provides more interesting plot twists, character development, and a chance to revisit characters who worked well in the earlier novels.

A Little Yellow Dog is a top-notch successor to the earlier books in the Easy Rawlins series. Don't miss it!

Here's a guy who is just trying to keep his life clean, after having a questionable past. He is obviously not involved in this killing, yet he continuously puts himself in situations that will get him linked to the case.

All he had to do was tell the truth from the start. Someone who had such a sordid past, and had since managed to straighten out their life, would just keep their eyes down, and be as honest with the police as possible.

At the beginning, he keeps repeating that he doesn't want the police to get too interested in him, since he didn't get his job by honest means, and he doesn't want them to find out.

Turns out, he got his job the same way 85% of Americans get their job; A friend put in a good word for him. How he got this new friend was a bit unscrupulous, but there is no amount of investigating that would have uncovered that.

Even so, if he didn't want the police getting too interested, why did he keep putting himself in places and with people that were linked with the crimes.

The whole plot was just way too ridiculous for me to let go and enjoy the story, which, by the way, I thought was written with too choppy a style of writing anyway.

BTW, has anyone else noticed, at least three of the five star ratings are identical to the word?

This is the best book out of the Easy Rawlins series. It is wonderful and extremely vivid the way Walter Mosley describes the characters and the scenes of this novel. I could not put this book down. This is a great book!

A Yellow Dog was just too long and drawn out. It started out okay. But trying to find the killer just got to be too long and boring. I think the killings should have taken place throughout the book. It seems most of them took place up front. It was getting on my nerves. I love the character Easy Rawlins, but does he have to sleep with every woman he meets? He kind of reminds me of Susan Lucci's character - Erica Cain on All My Children. This book was definitely not Walter's best work. I loved "A Red Death" and "Black Betty". Sorry Walter, you have done better. I never finished this book because it didn't keep my interest as the others. Maybe I'll try your latest one "Gone Fishin".

This is another book review by Wolfie and Kansas, the boonie dogs from Toto, Guam. Reviewing this book poses an ethical dilemma for us. How should a Jewish reviewer treat Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"? How should an African-American reviewer deal with Melville's "Benito Cereno"? In this book, Mosley's normally admirable hero, Easy Rawlins, displays negative species-centric attitudes towards the title character, the little yellow dog. Except for this problem, this is a typical well-written Easy Rawlins mystery. The book is also redeemed somewhat by the fact that some of the characters have a more positive attitude than Rawlins towards the dog. Still, human dog-lovers seeking a mystery novel might be better off reading a less miscaninthropic book, such as Frederick Busch's "Girls"