Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery

With the eleventh entry in the Easy Rawlins series, Walter Mosley does it once again, and proves that even after a six-year hiatus, Easy Rawlins is arguably the masterpiece of his unique oeuvre, and still familiarly fits like your favorite well-worn jacket, slippers -- or glove.Commencing two months after Easy's apparent late-night suicide off the Pacific Coast Highway in 1967 as described in the final pages of "Blonde Faith", this adventure admittedly takes a few short chapters to settle back in to vintage Mosley storytelling, opting instead to tackle and meditate briefly on basic existential questions involving Life and its meaning, as experienced by a reawakened (from a semicoma) and still-convalescing Rawlins -- a motif that runs through the entire adventure and to its completion. These initial Easy musings as he regains his consciousness of being distract somewhat from the tale ahead, mostly because of the descriptive imagery Mosley uses this go-round, which borders on the purple in spots, and runs counter to expectations generally held for characters steeped in the 'hardboiled' school of detective novels. While Mosely's brilliance has always been to meld social commentary with such a novel, putting a unique spin on the genre, he gets lost for a spell, it seems, on needless philosophy, which slows the pace considerably, though it may be seen as possibly being symbolic of Easy's reticence to come back to the life he knows in the streets -- yet another theme explored in previous mysteries in the series.One thing about Easy Rawlins, though, is he's always true to his roots, so by the time he visits Mama Jo and downs his first drops of her life-giving elixir, then both he and the story are off to the races like the Easy of old. With familiar faces and places appearing along the way (including a very entertaining, yet disappointing return stop in the world of California hippie counterculture that rips off a lot of what was so freshly described in a previous novel, "Cinnamon Kiss"), "Little Green" ultimately earns its place as the next step in the evolution of one of the genre's best and most distinctive characters.Welcome back, Easy Rawlins -- we hardly knew ye ... could be so sorely missed.

Easy Rawlins is back from what could have been a guaranteed death in the last novel. He has been in and out of consciousness since being discovered near death and when he finally comes to full consciousness he gets a request for help from one Raymond Alexander aka Mouse. An offer he can't refuse.He is asked to find a missing teenager and return him to his mother. This is the usual fare for the private investigator Rawlins but the time frame is 1967 and there are drugs, free love and hippies running rampant. Can Easy trust what he is seeing? With Easy taking powerful medication to help his weakness, is he strong enough to persevere?This was a very good read, Walter Mosley can tell a story and give a feel for one man's thoughts and feelings. Easy has been through a lot in his years and he is feeling it in this novel. I find the character to be very enjoyable as not only is he thoughtful and interesting, his supporting cast is very solid, Mouse is someone to be feared.I have read all of the Easy Rawlins novels and while I am nostalgic about his first few outings, I still enjoy the books being written today.

With Little Green Walter Mosley brings back from the near dead his premiere character, Easy Rawlins, and in doing so cements his position in the triumvirate atop the hard-boiled PI Mt. Olympus, with Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. In fact, in light of the racial themes Mosley is able to so powerfully exploit, and the rich history of characters from previous novels that form a living community in which Easy moves, I would be apt to place Mosley at the top of the literate detective story genre.When last we encountered Easy Rawlins he was narrating his own suicide/accidental death at the end of Blond Faith, obviously leaving the door open for a return, but only a crack. At the time Mosley was saying that his return was unlikely. This book proves that Mosley still has a lot to say through Easy, as this comeback is a terrific effort.Even though six years have passed since the last Easy Rawlins book, only 2 months have passed for Easy--a two month purgatory of semi-comatose incapacity where he has been nursed by Mouse, Feather, Jesus and Benita. He awakens to family, and none closer than Mouse, who asks him (with Mouse-like inscrutability) to track down a young man, the titular Little Green, who has disappeared into 1967 Sunset Strip hippiedom. Easy knows it is either move forward or die, so with the help of some mysterious Gator juice, brewed up by Mama Jo, he does move forward with a plot rich in timely detail and interpersonal observation. Easy deftly deals with hippies, motorcycle gangsters, plain old street gangsters, prostitutes, corporate raiders, blackmailers, drunks, officious bureaucrats, bartenders and businessmen, to name but a few. He is back in his element. The cast Mosley has created over the previous 11 Rawlins books makes for a rich backdrop and sentimental heft to Easy's musings. We run up against Blue, Jewel, Mama Jo, Demarque and Primo (in name), Suggs, Jesus and Feather, Etta, even Joppy Shag makes an appearance when Easy needs a temporary false name, and above all Raymond Alexander. Easy even achieves a reconciliation, of sorts, with Bonnie Shay. We also meet a couple of new characters, the hippie chicks Ruby and Coco, that Mosley invests with so much life that we hope for their return in future stories.While it is true that before the demise of Easy in Blond Faith the Rawlins formula was wearing a little thin, absence has definitely made the heart grow fonder. This novel seems fresh, original, and in places profound with Mosley hitting on all cylinders once again. A great performance.

Walter Mosley is justifiably well-known for his novels, particu!arly the Easy Rawlins books. They are equal parts history and mystery with the added spice of Easy's racial commentary. Mosley is for the discerning mystery reader who knows there is more to the genre than merely a good plot.

I have been reading Easy Rawlins novels for decades now and as such am an avowed fan, however, I believe I can readily admit that this instalment is as close to brilliant as the original, but in a marked different way.Normally with an 'Easy' novel the set-up of the novel starts with our Private Detective setting up his current circumstances then being inextricably drawn into a desperate scenario which he only escapes in the end due to a great deal of luck, bravado, nouse and Mouse (his psychotic friend). This novel is slightly different though as when we last saw Easy he was drunk behind the wheel of his car going over a cliff.From the moment he wakes through to the very end of the novel there is an otherworldliness about the story this time. I was reminded by "A Matter of Life and Death" wherein David Niven was never really sure how he had survived an aeroplane crash, leading him to hallucinations. Easy Rawlins is in much the same state and thanks to Mama Jo's special medicine is closer to zombie than real man. And this is why I enjoyed the story so much; not just the cultural references to the attitudes and colour of the 60's and their impact on race-relations, but the genuine surprise you can feel from the author who has already killed off this character and now feels justified to be able to do anything he likes with it post-resurrection.I would recommend this book as a stand-alone from the series, or as a welcome addition to it, to any and to all who enjoy adult literature with enough style and imagination to keep it above its contemporaries without sacrificing plot or narrative pace.

My first Walter Mosley, which forces you to see the world through the eyes of an ethnic minority. A very stark view.

I purchased this book for my husband, who is a Walter Mosley fan, and he was not disappointed in any way whatsever. He was unable to put it down and read it in less than two days!

Having read all of the Easy Rawlins books seemingly years ago, and now loving reading about Leonid McGill, I had given up hope of Walter Mosley reprising his most famous character. Then said, when I heard he would finally reprise Easy, I was worried that it might be a come down from past glories. But A Phantom Menace this isn't - this is classically verbose Mosley, with the delicious turn of phrase, lighting up Vietnam-era LA once again and reawakening his apparently-dead character. I won't spoil it but the start of the book sees a semi-comatose Easy being asked to help Mouse with a problem, and then how that problem wends it way through to a conclusion with a late-model Easy as usual taking on all-comers.Along the way there are cameo appearances from numerous characters from previous Easy books, which will reward the Mosley completer-finishers and might confuse a little those new to the books, but at no point does it feel gratuitous - it just feels like a normal Easy Rawlins novel that takes up from where Mosley left off many years ago.So in short - a great read, of which I deliberately slowed down reading so as to cherish the beautiful writing. This is classical Mosley and Easy and will beguile both new and existing readers - highly recommended.