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Little Scarlet: an Easy Rawlins… 
Walter Mosley            
7 copies

Walter Mosley delivers at last the compelling master work everyone's been waiting for--a novel so intriguing, so soulful, so unstoppably dramatic that it will rank among the classic mysteries of our time.

At the height of the riots that cripple LA in the summer of 1965, a white man is pulled from his car by a mob and escapes into a nearby apartment building. Soon afterward, a red-headed woman known as Little Scarlet is found dead in that apartment building--and the fleeing man is the obvious suspect. The police ask Easy Rawlins to investigate. What he finds is a killer whose rage, like that which burned the city for weeks, is intrinsically woven around race and passion. Rawlins's hunt for the killer will reveal a new city emerging from the ashes--and a new life for Easy and his friends.

Mosley's lean and muscular vernacular captures the heat and the rhythm of Los Angeles' heart, where danger is the common currency of everyday life.

Publishers Weekly

Admirably performed by reader Boatman, this audiobook the latest in Mosley's series featuring Los Angeles PI Easy Rawlins (A Red Death, etc.) picks up immediately after the Watts riots of 1965. It is a time of change, and Rawlins finds himself in the unusual position of being asked to officially help the LAPD in its search for the killer of a young black woman. Mosley is at his best capturing the gritty ambience of a setting, and Boatman's skillful reading of the author's rich, descriptive prose transports listeners to that sweltering summer, when violence and fear simmered just below the city's surface. With the support of the LAPD in his back pocket, Rawlins makes his way through places that had previously been closed, if not forbidden, to the blacks of that time. Boatman does a fine job of conveying the growing sense of confidence and strength that comes with Rawlins's newfound freedom. Tightly edited and nicely produced, this already enjoyable audiobook is further enhanced by snippets of jazz accenting the story elements at the beginning and end of each disc. Simultaneous release with the Little, Brown hardcover (Forecasts, May 24). (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.