EASY RAWLINS

Ezekiel “Easy” Porterhouse Rawlins is an African American World War II veteran turned private detective living in Los Angeles. Starting with author Walter Mosley’s first novel about the detective, Devil in a Blue Dress, the series follows Rawlins as he investigates crimes and navigates the social injustices and race politics of America in the 1940s–’60s. Easy falls into unlicensed private detective work after losing his job at a defense plant. And unlike some other detectives on this list, as an amateur African American private detective, Rawlins is keen to avoid intervention of the police at all costs. In total, Mosley has written 14 novels about the detective, the most recent one being Charcoal Joe in 2016.

(via BookRiot)

SOUTH BEND — At the end of the novel “Blonde Faith,” Walter Mosley decided that Easy Rawlins, his most famous character, had to die.

So after 11 Easy Rawlins novels since “Devil in a Blue Dress” debuted in 1990, Mosley decided to allow Rawlins to have a fatal accident at the end of “Blonde Faith” in 2007.

Mosley told an audience at the St. Joseph County Public Library that he didn’t know where to take Rawlins, the black World War II veteran private eye whom the world first met in “Devil in a Blue Dress.”

“‘Blonde Faith’ was a very romantic novel in a way and I really liked that,” he said. “I enjoyed it, but I felt that I was repeating myself.” Read the rest of this entry »

SOUTH BEND — “Devil in a Blue Dress,” a 1990 mystery novel by Walter Mosley, will be the “One Book, One Michiana” selection for 2017.

The title was announced Monday by the St. Joseph County Public Library.

Community residents will be encouraged to read the book, and participate in a series of related discussions, lectures, film screenings and other events this spring.

“Devil in a Blue Dress” was Mosley’s first published book. The plot focuses on black war veteran Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins and his transformation from a day laborer into a detective. The story is set in 1948 in the Watts area of Los Angeles.

The novel won a 1991 Shamus Award in the category “Best First P. I. Novel.”

The book was made into a 1995 film of the same name, starring Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins, and also featured Jennifer Beals, Tom Sizemore, Maury Chaykin and Don Cheadle.”

(via southbendtribune.com)

The prolific author of the Easy Rawlins series writes what about whatever he wants, even if he has to switch publishers to get it done.

BY: RONDA RACHA PENRICE
Posted: July 10, 2016

Walter Mosley’s website lists books he’s written. Right now there are 48: 43 fiction and five nonfiction. And later this year, he’ll add to the list—a highly intellectual book titled, Folding the Red Into the Black: Developing a Viable Untopia for Human Survival in the 21st Century, which is due out in October. “It’s a repudiation of both capitalism and socialism on another level,” he explains.

Charcoal Joe, his most recent work of fiction, which came out last month, is perhaps more familiar territory for most of us. It is Mosley’s latest from his Easy Rawlins mystery series. Back in 1995, Denzel Washington played Easy, and Don Cheadle, in a breakout role, played Mouse on the big screen in Devil in a Blue Dress. The last book in the series, Rose Gold, was published two years ago, and Rawlins is picking up from there. It’s Los Angeles in the late 1960s, where race and life intersect. Mosley has visited Rawlins’ life for 14 books now, and he hasn’t felt stuck.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Steve Novak,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Walter Mosley’s private investigator Easy Rawlins has been around for nearly three decades now. Readers first met him in “Devil in a Blue Dress” when he agrees to find a missing person. The task that begins as a lark proves an inspiration to the recent World War II veteran that he may have found a suitable occupation. He takes to the streets of Los Angeles in the early 1940s and feels his way to an unexpected career.

Mr. Mosley’s 14th Easy Rawlins mystery, “Charcoal Joe,” shows just how far the character has come since that first case. With money he garnered from his last case, “Rose Gold” (2014), he has started his own private investigation agency, complete with two associates. As he walks to his new office, Easy realizes just what has happened to his life.

“I took in a deep breath through my nostrils and smiled, thinking that a poor black man from the deep South like myself was lucky not to be dead and buried, much less a living, breathing independent businessman,” he thinks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Walter Mosley (“Devil in a Blue Dress”) and producer Denise Grayson have hired writer-director Paul Chart to adapt Mosley’s thriller “Killing Johnny Fry” for a feature film.

Mosley will produce through his company BOB Filmhouse together with Denise Grayson Productions.

Mosley’s novel, published in 2006, centers on nice guy Cordell Carmel, who’s shocked to discover his long-time girlfriend is secretly enjoying a darkly sexual double life with the handsome but menacing Johnny Fry. Cordell soon finds himself seduced into a twisted world of sex, drugs and murder.

“Having Paul Chart as a writer makes the translation of ideas into script easy, true to the purpose, and all kinds of fun,” Mosley said.

Chart is currently writing the sci-fi TV series “The Fourth Kingdom” for “Game of Thrones” executive producer Vince Gerardis. He recently founded independent production company Lionhart Films with partners Daniel Frey and Steve Valentine.

Mosley is best known for the mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator and World War II veteran living in Los Angeles, including “Devil in the Blue Dress.” Denzel Washington starred in the 1995 movie.

Three other Mosley properties have been adapted for TV — Showtime aired a series in 1993 based on Mosley’s “Fallen Angels”; Laurence Fishburne starred in HBO’s TV movie “Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned” in 1998; and ABC’s “Masters of Science Fiction” aired the “Little Brother” episode in 2007.

Chart directed and wrote “American Perfekt,” which starred Fairuza Balk and Robert Forster and screened at Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 1997.

Chart is represented by Advanced Management. Mosley is repped by CAA and Gloria Loomis at Watkins/Loomis Agency.

(via variety.com)

With his wryly clever conversational style, best-selling author Walter Mosley charmed a packed Loker Student Union ballroom after stopping by California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) Feb. 16 for a reading from his novel “Little Scarlet,” and to share thoughts about writing, racial inequity, and his personal reflections of the Watts Rebellion.

Mosley was the guest speaker for the Department of English 2016 Patricia Eliet Memorial Lecture. He is a prolific writer of more than 40 books—ranging from crime novels to literary fiction—and is widely recognized for his Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins detective series based in Watts, which includes the first book in the series “Devil in the Blue Dress,” as well as “Little Scarlet.”

“I’m going to read the first three chapters of ‘Little Scarlet’ because I think that he [Easy] covers the experience of the riots as I remember it,” said Mosley. Read the rest of this entry »

by John King

I am primarily a reader of literary fiction. It is where the joys and the fun of reading tend to be for me. Like many literary readers, I have a deep, complicated affection for hard-boiled detective fiction, à la Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The blunt brutality, bold psychology, and flourishes of purple style are compressed into a lovely textual cocktail by the form of the mystery, the plot that is itself a chase after a question mark. Characterization is both impressionistic and elusive—precisely as elusive as the mystery, usually.

One of the hallmarks of contemporary detective fiction is the shortness of chapters, which makes the form even more compressed. This would seem to deepen the challenge of the genre even more than classic hard-boiled detective fiction—or highlight the genre author’s flaws. Read the rest of this entry »

Acclaimed American author is Writing on the Wall guest as part of One Magnificent City
American author Walter Mosley is making a rate UK appearance when he comes to Liverpool next week as part of the Writing on the Wall festival.

The 63-year-old is making a special trip from his home in New York to take part in ‘An Evening With’ event at Liverpool Town Hall as part of the American Dreams programme to celebrate Cunard’s 175th anniversary through the One Magnificent City programme. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW ORLEANS – Tulane University will award honorary degrees to best-selling mystery writer Walter Mosley, philosopher and Parliament member Onora O’Neill and renowned jurist Hein Kötz at its spring commencement, the university announced Tuesday.

Commencement ceremonies will be May 16 in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

The ceremonies will also include keynote speaker Maya Rudolph and performances by Topsy Chapman and Dr. Michael White’s Original Liberty Jazz Band, along with confetti cannons and a second-line procession.

Mosley is an author of more than 40 critically acclaimed books. Two of Mosley’s works, which include literary fiction, science fiction, political monographs and a young adult novel, have been made into movies: Devil in A Blue Dress and Always Outnumbered.

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