Product Description

Walter Mosley's bestselling and award-winning novels -- from Gone Fishin' to Devil in a Blue Dress, named one of the "100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century" by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association -- have endeared him to legions of readers from a U.S. president to everyday people who can't get enough of Easy Rawlins.

Now from the bestselling and award-winning writer comes Six Easy Pieces. The beloved Ezekiel Rawlins now has a steady job as senior head custodian of Sojourner Truth High School, a nice house with a garden, a loving woman, and children. He counts the blessings of leading a law-abiding life, but is "nowhere near happy." Easy mourns the loss of his best friend, Mouse. Though Easy tries to leave the street life behind, he still finds himself trading favors and investigating cases of arson, murder, and missing people. People who can't depend on the law to solve their problems seek out Easy.

A bomb is set in the high school where Easy works. A man's daughter runs off with his employee. A beautiful woman turns up dead and the man who loved her is wrongly accused. Easy is the man people turn to in search of justice and retribution. He even becomes party to a killing that the police might call murder.

Six of the seven stories in Six Easy Pieces were published in reissued Washington Square Press editions of the Easy Rawlins mysteries Gone Fishin', Devil in a Blue Dress, A Red Death, White Butterfly, Black Betty, and A Little Yellow Dog. A seventh, "Amber Gate," is newly published here, making this new Walter Mosley classic a must-have for all fans of great fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1425525 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-01
• Released on: 2003-01-07
• Format: Bargain Price
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Fans of Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries received a bonus when Washington Square recently reissued in trade paper the six novels that preceded the latest one, Bad Boy Brawly Brown (2002). Each reprint contained an original short story featuring Easy. Now, those stories and a seventh never before published have been gathered together in a volume that's something of a patchwork but still vintage Mosley. In his mid-forties, with a makeshift but tight family and a respectable and responsible job, Easy no longer needs to depend on trading favors to earn a living. But these stories reflect a more restless and reckless man-one who finds himself being drawn to the street life he thought he had left behind. Energized and unsettled by rumors that the dangerous and unpredictable Raymond Alexander, better known as Mouse, might still be alive, Easy undertakes to determine the truth. That extended search also finds Easy undertaking a number of jobs that recall his forte of being a black man more capable than most of dealing with the volatile intersection of blacks and whites in Los Angeles. In short order he investigates arson, murder, a missing person and other crimes. The linked stories form an extended search not only for Mouse but also for answers as Easy confronts the familiar demons of mid-life crisis. Easy occupies center stage, surrounded by a stellar cast of both new and familiar characters, while the spirit of Mouse hovers enticingly nearby.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Easy Rawlins is 44 and working a steady job as head custodian at Sojourner Truth Junior High School; mourning the death of his friend Mouse; caring for his adopted children, Jesus and Feather; and pining for his live-in girlfriend, Bonnie. But this "guy who trades in favors"--really an unofficial detective who helps those who can't go to the police--isn't ready to live the quiet life. As he works a variety of cases involving theft, blackmail, and usually murder, the ghost of his violent alter ego Mouse seems to be flitting about the periphery--Is he really dead?--and Easy's sense of unease is compounded by deep insecurity in his relationship with the woman he loves. This collection of related short stories has an unusual lineage: all but the last, "Amber Gate," were first published in Washington Square Press reissues of all six classic Easy Rawlins mysteries this year (Six Easy Pieces picks up just after the time of 1996's A Little Yellow Dog). Collecting them so soon would feel more like a marketing ploy if they didn't work so well together; despite periodic recaps of the action-to-date, the book reads like an episodic novel. Mosley is as fine as ever, offering compelling commentary on black-white relations in 1964, writing in a style so simple that it deceives us into thinking writing great fiction is as easy as putting one foot in front of the other. It's not, but turning these pages is. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
USA Today [A] taut collection....Mosley returns to his first and perhaps finest creation: Easy Rawlins. -- Review

Customer Reviews

Down in the Mean Streets
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.

7 Easy cases in 6 Easy Pieces
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

OVER EASY
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.