{"id":3245,"date":"2024-07-17T08:57:13","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T15:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=3245"},"modified":"2024-07-17T08:57:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T15:57:13","slug":"new-crimes-old-desires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=3245","title":{"rendered":"New crimes, old desires"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer<\/p>\n

FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE. By Walter Mosley. Mulholland Books. 336 pages. $30.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The title gives it away.<\/p>\n

In all previous 15 books about Ezekiel \u201cEasy\u201d Rawlins, dozens of beautiful women pass through the pages. None of them get more than a few chapters, however, and few of them make it to the end of the book with Easy. It\u2019s no surprise, then, that somewhere near the end of the book, Easy says Farewell, Amethystine<\/em>. He has let us know what\u2019s going to happen. He uses his mastery of the mystery genre to keep the reader interested in how it\u2019s going to happen.<\/p>\n

It all starts when Amethystine steps across the threshold of Easy\u2019s office into his heart. She wants him to find her ex-husband Curtis. He wants to stay in touch with her. He takes the case even though he thinks she isn\u2019t telling him everything. Easy sets off to find the guy. \u00a0In the process, he is so moved by Amethystine that he is rocked by flashbacks to lost loves, past desires. Through memories and dreams, Walter Mosley reveals new information about Easy\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

When Easy finds the husband, he\u2019s dead. He tries to get his only friend on the police force, Melvin Suggs, to help him, but Suggs is being blackmailed by someone who has information that would put his wife away for good. Easy takes on his buddy\u2019s case as well. Before long he finds himself where no black man in 1970\u2019s Los Angeles should be \u2014 mixed up with \u201c\u2026cops, career criminals and strangers.\u201d\u00a0He extracts Fearless Jones, another Mosley character, from jail to help him deal with thugs. He also has to use his get-out-of-jail-alive card from Police Capt. Anatole McCourt. Mosley adeptly weaves the two plots together, keeping us in the dark, but keeping us reading comfortably. It\u2019s all about the money, and after five bodies in seven days, Easy knows whodunnit, and he knows he has to say Farewell, Amethystine<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As always, Mosley puts everything into a social context. His books are as much about the place of a black man in society as they are about the mystery. As he moves through his carefully constructed world \u2014 thriving detective agency, a salary twice that of the average Angeleno, a beautiful house for his family \u2014 Easy still carries himself as a man who\u2019s \u201c\u2026lived half a century under the weight of second-and third-class citizenship.\u201d He still moves with the \u201c\u2026fear comprised of four hundred years of experience crushed down into fifty short years of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social commentary, fascinating characters, good plot and great writing make this 16th Easy Rawlins adventure a great read. Without question, Mosley is not just the best African-American mystery novelist; he\u2019s one of the best American novelists, period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE. By Walter Mosley. Mulholland Books. 336 pages. $30. The title gives it away. In all previous 15 books about Ezekiel \u201cEasy\u201d Rawlins, dozens of beautiful women pass through the pages. None of them get more than a few chapters, however, and few of them make it to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1356,590,5,14],"tags":[425,1403,1404,79],"class_list":["post-3245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-fiction","category-detective-fiction-mysteries","category-mysteries","category-thriller-suspense","tag-detective-fiction","tag-easy-rawlings","tag-mystery-novels","tag-walter-mosley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3247,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3245\/revisions\/3247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}