Easy Rawlins in back on the job, after recovering from a nearly deadly accident (or was it a suicide attempt? Even Easy isn't sure.) He has moved his family to a new home, and he and his lady love are mending fences, gradually. He's glad to be alive. But his latest engagement is a peculiar one; his client seems to be the LAPD, but other law enforcement agencies are impeding his investigation, and threatening him with various forms of prosecution, or worse, if he continues with it. Naturally, this only makes him more determined to get to the truth about an alleged kidnapping. Complicated plotting that gets just a bit tedious, and maybe too much explication of the plight of a black man in LA in the late 60's. I mean, the stories make it clear what kind of peril Easy can be in, just by driving a certain kind of car, showing up in a certain neighborhood, or carrying a fully licensed firearm in the trunk. It really isn't necessary for the author to call attention to these plot elements and their significance as he goes along---it feels a bit preachy sometimes, and I think the point is better made by simply showing us what happens. As usual, I marked a passage or two as worthy of quoting:

"Readin' good books is like meetin' a girl you wanna get to know bettah," Jackson Blue once told me. "You don't just have one talk and think you know her. If that was true there wouldn't be no need to get to know more...Same thing with a good book. You got to read that suckah again and again and still you findin' out sumpin' new every time."

"It struck me that though the hippies wanted to turn the world on its head, they kept pretty close to the expected roles of men and women." (in their commune's division of labor) ( )

The mayor and the chief of police in LA want Easy Rawlins to investigate the disappearance and potential kidnapping of Rosemary Goldsmith, the daughter of a prominent weapons manufacturer. They need Rawlins because he's black and think he will have a better chance of finding Bob Mantle, a black boxer-turned-revolutionary who has been seen with Rosemary in Los Angeles. Rose Gold is loosely based on Patty Hearst, and Easy does his usual great job of finding missing people. While I could deal with the other sideplot investigations, I thought that Easy's luck in finding key connections a little far fetched, but Walter Mosely always tells much about the state of the nation and race relations at that time through Easy's narrative.
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Easy Rawlins has a new house and new debts and the city building inspectors are pressuring him: although reluctant he accepts an assignment from LAPD to find Battling Bob Mantle, a former pug boxer, suspected of being involved in the possible kidnapping of Rosemary Goldsmith, daughter of ammunitions magnate, Foster Goldsmith. Easy calls on disgraced and suspended LAPD detective to help and together, with, the help of the last warrior of the extinct Taaqtam people, Teh-ha, also called Redbird, they solve several crimes and return Rosemary to her parents.

I can't believe I've caught up to Easy Rawlins. I've been reading him for 20 years and now we're the same age. This was a strong entry in the series. Easy just getting in with it without all the dream sequences and near death experiences. People get found, wrongs get righted. Good stuff. ( )

L. A. private detective Easy Rawlins is back in his thirteenth adventure; the second after Mosley left readers believing Easy had perished after driving his car off a California cliff. It’s only months after that near-death experience, and Easy is still recuperating.

Easy’s focus is no longer catching the bad guy but making a good life for his daughter, Feather, which includes getting her into a pricey private school. He needs money; not sure how he’s going to afford the tuition, but confident that he’ll find a way.

The story open with Easy moving to a newer home, not terribly far from his current address. He may be moving, but Easy is an simple man to find. He is approached by undercover police officer Roger Fisk and three other unidentified, plainclothes officers to find Rosemary Gold, the daughter of a very wealthy and very private munitions manufacturer. Readers should keep in mind that the novel takes place in the 1960s, at the height of Vietnam. I immediately thought of Patty Hearst and her 1974 kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. And while Rose Gold’s action takes place long before that event, I can’t help but wonder if Mosely wasn’t influenced by it. The revolutionary group who supposedly kidnapped the young heiress calls itself Scorched Earth, which again reminded me of the SLA.

Easy is reluctant to take the case; after all he is a black man who would be nosing into a white man’s business. He quickly changes his mind when he is offered an eight thousand dollar down payment on services rendered. This could be ticket to Feather’s education.

Needless to say, Easy finds himself involved in more than a mere kidnapping plot. Several other law enforcement agencies are either trying to buy him and his service or buy him off. Sometimes he isn’t sure exactly who he is working for nor exactly why he is y to Rosemary Gold

Mosley’s sentences are as colorful as the decade the action occurs. There’s the hippie subculture, plenty of drugs, tough guys who are hell bent on making a name for themselves in the neighborhood, and a fascinating subplot surrounding the last of an American Indian tribe who could almost be as dangerous as Easy’s friend, Mouse. And to top it off, Easy is in the doghouse with his girlfriend, Bonnie.

I give Easy Rawlins’ latest adventure 5 out of 5 stars. ( )