Blood Grove
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3.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Ezekiel "Easy" Porterhouse Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of Los Angeles.
But when Easy is approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran- a young white man who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a white woman from a black man- he knows he shouldn't take the case.
Though he sees nothing but trouble in the brooding ex-soldier's eyes, Easy, a vet himself, feels a kinship form between them. Easy embarks on an investigation that takes him from mountaintops to the desert, through South Central and into sex clubs and the homes of the fabulously wealthy, facing hippies, the mob, and old friends perhaps more dangerous than anyone else.
Set against the social and political upheaval of the late 1960s, BLOOD GROVE is ultimately a story about survival, not only of the body but also the soul.
Widely hailed as "incomparable" (Chicago Tribune) and "dazzling" (Tampa Bay Times), Walter Mosley proves that he's at the top of his game in this bold return to the endlessly entertaining series that has kept fans on their toes for years.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Early in MWA Grand Master Mosley's strong 15th Easy Rawlins mystery (after 2016's Charcoal Joe), Craig Kilian, a vet traumatized by combat experiences in Vietnam, arrives unannounced one day in 1969 at the L.A. detective agency that employs Easy. Craig, a white man, tells Easy he got into a fight with a knife-wielding Black man who was about to attack a white woman tied to a tree at a remote campsite. After fatally stabbing the Black man, Craig was hit in the head and lost consciousness. When he woke up, the body and the woman were gone. WWII vet Easy feels sympathy for Craig, and agrees to help find out what happened at the campsite. The upright detective soon becomes caught in a web of trouble involving stolen money, grisly murders, and weird sex clubs. Amid all the twists and turns and double-crosses, Easy confronts racism, an enduring feature "of the America I loved and hated." Mosley does a fine job highlighting a world of Black survivors who know how difficult their struggle remains, every day of every decade. This marvelous series is as relevant as ever.
Customer Reviews
More of the same
Author
American now in his late sixties. Prolific, bestselling, multi-award winning mystery writer best known for a series involving African-American private eye Easy (short for Ezekiel) Rawlins, which starts post-WW2 in Los Angeles soon after Easy gets out of the army, and moves slowly forward from there, accumulating a rich and colourful crew of support players. In addition to the mystery elements, the Easy Rawlins books dramatise and document the fraught history of race relations in the US better than any number of academic articles or tomes.
In brief
It's 1969. LA is flush with hippies and damaged Vietnam veterans. Our boy is now part of a respectable company of private eyes (as respectable as private eyes get, at least), and living the high life (his house is in a gated community high on a bluff overlooking the ocean accessed by funicular). Old habits (putting himself in the firing line) die hard though. He's approached by one of the above mentioned Vietnam vets (white with PTSD although that name hadn't been invented yet) who thinks he might have killed a black dude but can't be sure because someone knocked him out and wants to know whether he actually did it. With me so far? Doesn't matter. Things rapidly become more Byzantine than you can imagine as one line of investigation leads to another, and another, then loops back and starts again, and everyone's lying anyway, yada, yada, murder, mayhem, armed robbery, drugs, race-related police brutality, prostitution, extortion etc. Resolution of sorts occurs eventually.
Writing
Hard boiled noir. Don't worry about missing any implied racism because it's all overt. Extremely overt. A number of Easy's regular irregulars make appearances. While Mr Mosley supplies brief background sketches where appropriate, Rawlins virgins will probably have trouble getting their heads around the dramatis personae, especially with such a convoluted plot. e.g. who is a member of team Easy, who is newly created lowlife, and how they fit together. Or not as the case may be.
Bottom line
Solid Mosley fare that falls short of his best. I'm a welded-on aficionado, and I had to go back and re-read several sections to get things straight in my head. (Before you say what else can I expect at my age, it should be noted that I'm younger than Mr Mosley. Just.)