Bad Boy Brawly Brown

another wonderful easy rawlins adventure. my alltime favorite slueth gives us more twist and turns on the way to a thrilling finish. walter mosley is the best mystery writer of our time!

It's been years since I've read an Easy Rawlings novel and I haven't a clue why. Walter Mosley manages to create one of the most interesting and fascinating characters in modern mysteries today. The series have become atmospheric time pieces that sear into the heart of what it is to be black in America, this time in the turbulant sixties. Mouse dead, Easy has become domesticated, living with his girlfriend Bonnie and his children Feather and Jesus. Asked by his freind John to find a missing boy, Brawly Brown, Easy takes up the task and finds himself in water much deeper than he could of ever imagined. Told with his characteristic direct and honest prose, it's another great book to savor in one of the best series out there.

I picked this up just to have a look and after the first page I couldn't put it down, reading from early evening until about 3 A.M. I finished it the following morning. That, in itself, says something. The book, a fast paced, many layered tale of an African-American with a day job as head janitor at a local school and an avocation for helping his friends in the ghetto world of mid-1960's Watts in L.A., highlights Walter Mosley's detective character, Ezekiel (Easy) Rawlins, and brilliantly conjures up his world. Called in to help an old friend who's gone from bartender to real estate developer and whose girlfriend's stepson has gone missing, Easy soon stumbles on a complex web of murder and deceit as he begins digging into the Urban Revolutionary Party and the First Men (think Black Panthers here), a group of young black radicals intent on challenging the system they believe holds them down. No naif himself, Easy knows the system all too well, particularly when being rousted by racist cops or manipulated by a special squad, out to shortcircuit the perceived threat of the young revolutionaries. And then there's the set up, inevitable in a book like this. Never far from Easy's troubled mind is his pathologically violent best friend, Mouse, whose penchant for shooting his enemies with deadly accuracy has gotten Easy out of innumerable jams but who has recently been killed himself. Easy is wracked by guilt for his friend's death while worrying about being a father to the two children he's adopted and keeping the beautiful stewardess who has set up housekeeping with him. Easy is juggling all these issues as he digs ever more deeply and somewhat reluctantly into the disappearance of his buddy's girl's son, an oversized, powerful and sometimes violent kid who has been ensnared by the glamor of the revolution and his need to do something important. The size of the kid, alone, makes Easy uneasy as to how he can stop him, once he makes contact, and leads to a remarkably logical if somewhat amoral solution. Meanwhile, Easy has to figure out who murdered whom and help the young idealists he encounters to avoid the snares of a cynical system that means to take them down. The book is tight, the writing vital and fresh. I was sucked right in, enthralled by the easy style, the rich characters and the sleekly plotted tale. Think I'll pick up a few more from Mosley. SWM

Mouse is not dead. In "Bad Boy Brawly Brown" Mouse's spirit pervades nearly every page, certainly every chapter and, ultimately, Mr. Ezekiel Porterhouse Rawlins finds that, whether dead or alive, Mouse has given him the solution to the problem of Brawly Brown. And Walter Mosley offers a solid hint that Easy's quest to purge himself of his guilt over Mouse's death will be continued in the next installment in the series.I can't believe that I'm saying this: This book was worth every day I've waited for it over the past six years. After completing the book moments ago, even as a dedicated Mosley fan I was struck numb by the power of his words and his vision here. Other reviewers have commented on that already. But because Mosley is writing about a now well-documented period of history and my life when secret police "intelligence" units along with the FBI ant others were concocting provocations and committing extra-judicial murders much as Mosley describes them in his novel, perhaps it resonated with me more than it might with other readers, or at least resonated differently. I knew people such as Mosley describes in this novel in the late '60s and early '70s, people filled with the desperate passions of revolutionaries and dreams of a greater freedom for their humanity. Mosley honors the memories of many members of a generation that struggled and dreamed by allowing their many voices to speak through his characters with all their flaws and strengths. The brightest threads of Mosley's multi-textured and intertwining plots are those which reveal Rawlins, the man, unobstructed by the ferocious shadow of Mouse, and the torture of human relationships, especially those of family. One reviewer commented that this novel did not provide the action and thrills (s)he expected from a mystery novel. Mosley's novels are not thrill-a-minute rides any more than James Lee Burkes'. They are stories of the human condition and how it traps us, for better or worse, into behaving in ways that we would prefer to avoid but cannot because of duty or honor or responsibility or love or obligation or fear. Seen in this perspective, Mosley does not write mystery novels,he writes literature. And the fact that he so captures and exposes elements of African-American culture and experience and history places him as a writer in the first rank of ethnic spokespersons, in the company of Chester Himes, John A. Williams, James Baldwin, Ishmael Reed, and many other men and women who seek to celebrate triumph over suffering even when that triumph is celebrated by simply returning home, alive, and wiser.I have heard that Mosley is working on the next Easy Rawlins experience and that we will not be required to wait another six years to savor the words that describe them. I fervently hope that this is true. In the meantime, I will ponder what I have read today and I will remember when so much of it was life and not fiction. Bravo, Mr. Mosley. And thank you.

Easy Rawlins is back with a vengeance. He is not the same person though; he has lost his closest friend and feels that he will never recover from the hurt. Easy has settled into life as a family man, with a normal 9-5 job and a paycheck at the end of the week. In his opinion, his days as the unconventional private detective Easy Rawlins are well behind him. One day out of the blue Easy gets a call from his old friend John, it turns out that John's stepson Brawley Brown has disappeared and is running with members of a radical political group. Brawley's parents feel that he is entangled in a web of violence and will be harmed in the process. John has always helped Easy without question, so even though Easy doesn't want to look for Brawley, he does. As Easy begins his investigation, he finds himself in the midst of danger. He also discovers that this case is about much more than locating Brawley and returning him home. People in this novel are not always who or what they portray themselves to be. Life for Easy goes beyond being a private detective. In addition to the difficult case, he is dealing with potential problems brewing at home concerning his children. Also the loss of his best friend is on Easy's mind daily and sometimes overwhelms him. Bad Boy Brawley Brown is an intriguing mystery that keeps you guessing. Just when you think you know who the villain is, author Walter Mosley throws a curve ball that will have you thinking otherwise, and in my opinion that makes for the best stories of mystery. I must confess this is my first Walter Mosley novel, but it will not be my last because I enjoyed it. I highly recommend this book.Reviewed by Simone A. Hawks