Review of CINNAMON KISS by Walter Mosley (see his website)

EASY RAWLINGS MYSTERIES

Little, Brown & Company, September 2005

African-American private detective Easy Rawlings needs twenty-five thousand dollars in a hurry. His beautiful daughter is dying and a Swiss clinic may have the cure, but they want their money. He's even considering an armored car robbery, set up through his friend Mouse--although he's kept relatively straight for years. When another friend, white detective Saul calls him with a job that might pay ten thousand dollars to find a missing person, he jumps at the chance. The missing person is dead, but Easy learns that there is more than just a missing person--old bonds and an old letter offer evidence that an American company provided war materials to Hitler during World War II. Murders have been committed to protect less--and a paid assassin seems to have involved himself.

Author Walter Mosley (see more BooksForABuck.com reviews of novels by Mosley) writes convincingly of the 1960s--mostly in Watts, as that neighborhood remains in shock from the riots that destroyed virtually every business in town, but also in Berkley and San Francisco at the hopeful dawn of the hippie movement. Mosley manages a skillful balance between insight into a man's life and the mystery itself. Easy finds himself relying on his friends, worrying about women, inexplicably attractive to multiple women, and earning the grudging respect of a detective he wishes he didn't like.

Easy Rawlings is a fascinating protagonist, and CINAMMON KISS is a delight to read both because of the insights it provides into the African-American community, and the insights it provides into humanity. Mosley's strong writing drags the reader into the story and makes this a hard book to put down. I have no hesitation in recommending CINAMMON KISS.

Four Stars

Reviewed 11/11/05

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