Customer Reviews

Six Easy Pieces : Easy Rawlins Stories

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4 star:		(6)
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2 star:		(1)
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Easy Rawlins leads a complicated and complex life as a black quasi-detective in 1964 Los Angeles. Orphaned at eight years old, befriended by Raymond Alexander, known as Mouse and who is one of the most cold-blooded killing machines ever born, Easy grew up in Houston's Fifth Ward and has trouble staying out of the mean streets where he became a man. He's fought to change his life of violence, against himself and against others who constantly drag him back into that world where death is quick and harsh, and respect only comes with a stack of greenbacks or at the end of a gun. In SIX EASY PIECES, Easy actually takes on seven cases filled with death and mayhem, the kind of life he's always known, while striving to hold his personal life together and making certain none of that violence spills over onto the family he's struggled so hard to carve out of the tapestry of tragedy that he has never been far from. "Smoke" begins with a phone call that tells him Mouse, the friend whose death he believes he caused and whom he has mourned for the past year, is still alive. Bonnie Shay, the woman he has come to love and to trust, also has to leave the family for her stewardess job for a prolonged junket in Europe, leaving Easy restless until an arsonist strikes at Sojourner Truth Junior High School. As head custodian, Easy has to deal with the reports and the clean up at the school, but as a man of the streets whose best friend's death has left permanent guilt in him and whose woman has left, Easy strides into the shadows of the city after the man who started the fire. Easy follows up the lead he got regarding Mouse and ends up looking for a repentant prostitute then her killer in the church she attended in "Crimson Stain." In "Silver Lining" Easy revisits some old friends who are being blackmailed by a kidnapping, bringing Easy into direct line of fire from an old enemy. Bonnie's loyalty to Easy comes into question during her return from Europe in "Lavender" when flowers arrive at Easy's home before his woman does. EttaMae Harris, Mouse's woman, calls in a favor from Easy while he's dealing with his own pain over Bonnie, asking him to help a young man that has fallen for a young woman hell-bent on death and destruction. Saul Lynx, a private detective Easy has worked with in the past, pulls Easy into a case to clear a man accused of murder in "Gator Green." Family again becomes the central issue in "Gray-Eyed Death" as more of Easy's past surfaces, mixing in an armored car robbery and a frame. In "Amber Gate," Easy goes looking for the murderer of a young prostitute to clear a friend of a friend, and makes a major turning point in his life.

Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series has spawned seven novels to date. Six of those novels, DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS, A RED DEATH, WHITE BUTTERFLY, BROWN BETTY, LITTLE YELLOW DOG, and BAD BOY BRAWLY BROWN are primarily straight mystery-suspense novels. GONE FISHIN' is an exploration of Easy's early days and the violence that gave birth to the man he started becoming. Mosley has also written two volumes of short stories about ex-con Socrates Fortlow, ALWAYS OUTNUMBERED, ALWAYS OUTGUNNED and WALKIN' THE DOG. The author also writes science fiction in FUTURELAND and BLUE LIGHT. FEARLESS JONES introduced another detective duo that so far has only shown up in one novel. RL'S DREAM was a straight novel about the last days of a bluesman. Mosley has also authored nonfiction that includes WORKIN' ON THE CHAIN GANG and BLACK GENIUS.

Fans of Easy Rawlins will fall right into this collection of novellas because the resonance of Easy's life and the tapestry of his person history-including his failings as well as his successes-holds true. Long-time readers will get the feeling he or she is revisiting a well-known friend in the middle of several crisis points that those friends have seen coming. If this book is a reader's first exposure to Easy Rawlins and the violent world of pre-Civil Rights Los Angeles of 1964, the introduction to the man, his family, his views of life (and yes, there is more than one) and the violent and mean streets he walks down comes in simple gulps that never impede the action or the emotions. Easy Rawlins is a real person in these pages, full of hope, fear, love and hate. He holds the burning brand of self-knowledge and knowledge of the world, while at the same time being confused by twists and turns he can almost see coming, and being hurt by the unfairness of life that he knows is there but can never truly accept. Mosley's execution of the stories is flawless, pulling the readers into Easy's world and life, into his struggles with outsiders as well as himself. The dialogue is sharp and true, of the street, of years of growing and learning and accepting, of the stations in life that men and women of all colors sometimes get trapped in, and of the trade-off they make with hope and dreams just to find a means to survive.

SIX EASY PIECES is an excellent volume of crime fiction, of period noir, and of a man who is still yet growing and changing, still building himself while at the same time being broken and battered. New readers who enjoy the strong male characters of Robert B. Parker and James Lee Burke will find another author and voice to love and respect in these pages, and old readers will be visiting with a true friend they can trust and enjoy.

I love me some Easy Rawlins! When Walter Mosley let loose another round with Easy I was there to pick up the pieces; Six Easy Pieces.

Six Easy Pieces is a book of seven different stories reminding fans of who Ezekiel Rawlins is (as if we had forgotten) and what he does that makes us love him so. Mosley shows us a forty-four year old man who over time has become a senior janitor at Sojourner Truth Junior High School, a property owner, the father of two, and the lover of one. Despite all of that, each story has a friend needing his help and in spite of himself Easy ends up in the middle of all the action.

Mr. Mosley moves Easy easily through the city of Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California. He is involved with a little bit of everyone doing a little bit of everything. In the story Smoke, Easy investigates arson at his school, in Crimson Stain he investigates the death of a prostitute who found religion, in Lavender he is chasing after a Black boy with his nose wide open behind a flirtatious rich White girl, and in Gray Eyed-Death his past comes bursting back on the scene with a vengeance. These are just four of the seven exciting stories.

Easy Rawlins fans will enjoy this book because Mosley gives you small pieces of Easy and his friends in well told stories and good pacing to keep you reading until the end. This is especially good for those who want to satisfy a small itch but have limited time to read a whole Easy Rawlins Mystery. Those who haven't read Easy Rawlins Mysteries before will get recaps to bring you up to speed but will probably find yourself needing to read the other books to get a complete picture. (And that is not a bad thing.) Walter Mosley does it again and I just want him to keep doing it over and over and over again.

Kotanya
APOOO BookClub

Fans of the Easy Rawlins Series will be thrilled with this collection of seven short stories, six of which were culled from previous works and one that is original. This collection of short stories are unified by several common threads. First, we have Easy's attitude of grief and guilt over the death of his friend Mouse. Second, Easy's relationship with his girlfriend, Bonnie, is on the rocks. He isn't sure if he is the man for her. Third, we find Easy's deep concern over his adopted son, Jesus, who has dropped out of school. Add all of those elements together and you have a novella with intriguing possibilities. The short stories stand alone but taken as a whole the reader sees another side of Easy.

Although it was fun to re-read material published before, I had moments of disappointment with this volume. The constant repitition of facts that you already knew was an annoyance as you moved from story to story. In many cases the story ended to abruptly with you wondering how did Easy get from point A to point B so quickly? In truth I wished that this volume had been an entirely new collection of Easy stories and not just a compilation of older ones. Don't me get me wrong. The book is good but fans of Easy's deserve something new and fresh.

Readers who are unfamiliar with Easy will find great collection for them to whet their appetites for more of his adventures. Those of us who are oldtime fans will like the work for its collector's value and will yearn for something new from the author's pen.

The best thing about this book is the prose. The author has a fantastic style. This a magical book that adresses racism, betrayal, and dignity. It keeps you glued to your seat reading well into the night as you follow the protagonist, Easy Rawlins, as he discovers himself after a midlife crisis. Mosley has done it again! And I look forward to his next book. I hugely recommend this book, all of his books. And if you're looking for a few other great titles, look no further than these, Buckland's Hot List: most creative, The Butterfly: A Fable (Singh); most engaging, The Alchemist (Coelho); most interesting, Life of Pi (Martel); most enlightening, 9-11 (Chomsky); most thrilling, The Lovely Bones: A Novel (Sebold); and finally, the most creative, engaging, interesting, enlightening and thrilling book of all, The Little Prince (Saint-Exupery). These are the books I'd recommend to my family, friends, students, and wife. There are many more, trust me, but these are the first that come to mind (for having left an impact slight or proud as it may be). If you have any questions, queries, or comments, or maybe even a title you think I should add to my list, please feel free to e-mail me. I'm always open to a good recommendation. Thanks for reading my brief but hopefully helpful review. Happy reading. Donald S. Buckland.

A collection of six previously published and one new story comprise this novel which loosely moves forward the Easy narrative as he laments the loss of his friend Mouse, struggles with his relationship wth Bonnie and tries to do right by his kids. Mosley continues to stand out in contemporary crime fiction because the book(s) are equally as strong as a vivid portrait of being a black man in America. It's no contest that Easy is of the best drawn and fascinating caracters in literature today.

This was a much welcomed gift to us Easy fans from Walter Mosley, Even though the stories were all published in reissues of his previous works, they seem to flow smoothly. Dead or alive, Mouse has to be one of the most intriguing characters in Mystery Fiction today, aside from Ezekiel Rawlins. This is a must have for true fans, but WARNING; it will leave you ready for more.

The seven short stories are definitely easy to read, and it's a pleasure to once more be in the company of Easy Rawlings. Here's a chance to finally find out what happened to Mouse, and to catch up on Easy, Feather, Jesus, and Bonnie. 6 Easy Pieces is not as engaging as the earlier books in the Easy Rawlings series; there is not the sense of place and time conveyed in those novels. Still, you won't be sorry you read this book, if you're a fan of Easy Rawlings.

This collection includes one new and six previously published longish short stories featuring one of Walter Mosley's most fascinating characters, Easy Rawlins, a man who grew up more or less on his own and who has had his difficulties with the other side of the law at least partly because of his childhood friend, Mouse, who is a killer. He is, like Mosley's other character, Socrates Fortlow, trying to keep his life together in spite of the odds.

He functions as a sort of unofficial detective who gets involved in the troubles of people who might not otherwise go to the police with their problems, and as such he serves a real purpose in this gritty urban scene. Of course, Easy has been the protagonist in seven Mosley novels by now. These short stories fill in some of the gaps in his life history and as such contain background and psychological material that I think would be important for readers of the novels.

While these are seven (apparantly Mosley believes in overdelivering) enjoyable short stories, each in its own right, the overall story told in the series does have a couple of important developments here and make an interesting change of pace between the earlier and the later novels. I do have one comment and that isn't so much on this book itself as it is on labelling. The library copy I've read has an "African American" label on it, and I do wonder if designating the Easy Rawlins series as African American literature might not discourage many readers not acquainted with the series from reading it. While admitting that the label does fit, I feel the mystery designation is preferable. Be that as it may, the eries does portray the deveopment of inter-racial relations over a span of years, but this is better seen as a background to the mystery series.However yu lok at it, this is highly recommended, although I do suggest reading the earlier novels before tackling this collection.

I love Easy Rawlins, his style and wit and go get itism. Mr. Mosley continues to be my most respected writer of fiction.