Classic detective story filled with plot twists

A long time fan of Walt Mosley, Easy Rawlins in one of my favorite characters having been introduced to him with "Devil in the Blue Dress". Being that its the 15th story with the character, Easy has been a PI for years with a rather large circle of friends; so many its hard to keep track. But like all good detective plots this one grows crazier with each chapter. What first seems like a simple case of finding someone, Easy finds himself in a labyrinth whose twists and turns seem endless. Murder, armored car theft, strippers, children, etc. its anything but simple. As he slowly unravels the puzzle, momentum simmers and eventually comes to a boil. Paced perfectly, its anything but predictable which is why Mosley's skill at crime stories are always a pleasure, though its his unique characters and names that make him stand apart. Worth reading if you enjoy detective stories of a different sort. ( )

An enjoyable romp through sixties LA. EZ reflects on his military experience helping drag him into an unexpected case followed by a series of murders. A variety of women help drag him into a case filled with racism and puzzles including the heist of an armored car. ( )

Easy Does It
Review of the Mulholland Books audiobook edition (February 2021) released simultaneously with the Mulholland Books hardcover

[3.5]
Blood Grove is a return after several years to Mosley's regular detective character Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, who started out as a scuffling WW2 ex-army vet desperate for work in late 1940s Los Angeles in Devil in a Blue Dress (1990). This latest book is set in the world of 1969's LA with the memories of the 1965 Watts riots still not forgotten. Easy has established himself well in this world with an official detective agency, an extended family and a comfortable house and lavish car (a payment for a previous case).

Although the client, a Viet War vet, is introduced early, the case takes a considerable time to get moving as Mosley revisits Easy's backstory and regular characters in a leisurely fashion. The puzzle of the case is that the shell-shocked Viet War vet may have a memory of knifing someone or may instead just be having PTSD flashbacks to combat. Easy gradually unravels a trail that leads back to an apparent heist with a falling out between heist crew members. There is, of course, a mysterious femme fatale who is central to the case.

I'll confess that I did find the convoluted story a bit hard to follow in audio format, and would suggest that a hard copy format might be preferable.

The narration by veteran actor Michael Boatman (who has narrated most of the Rawlins novels) was excellent though.

I listened to Blood Grove thanks to the Audible Daily Deal on June 12, 2021. ( )

Set in the late 1960s, Easy is chilling in his office when a troubled Vietnam vet, Craig, asks for his help in finding a man he thinks he stabbed to save a women in distress in a blood orange grove. Reminiscing about his own war years, Easy agrees to help, finding himself without much help. He gathers clues along the way, showing his usual skill of saying the right things to get information or in bringing along the exact right person to help. There is a significant crime in the background. As always, Mosely does a superb job describing the period and city, but the book moves along too slowly, with cameo appearances by all of Easy's posse: Mouse, Etta, Christmas Black, Jackson Blue, Fearless Jones, and his LAPD buddy. There is also some family drama for Feather. ( )

It’s 1969, and Easy Rawlings is keeping an eye on a household he can observe from his private investigation office. Hippies have moved in to his LA neighborhood, and one of them is tending something in a greenhouse. His observations are interrupted when a client arrives. Easy wonders what brought him to his door: he’s a white guy with a strange story. He thinks he stabbed a Black man who he encountered in an orange grove assaulting a white woman tied to a tree. He can’t be sure exactly what happened because he was knocked unconscious; he’s also not a reliable witness because hen’s recently returned from the Vietnam war and shows obvious signs of severe post-traumatic stress. That’s what compels Easy to take a case that doesn’t sound promising at all. He had, himself, just been visited by troubling memories of his own war in Europe.

His quest quickly becomes complicated as leads entangle him with unsavory characters and too many of the people he needs to find turn up dead. As usual he gets an assist from his buddies, familiar to readers who are catching up on the fifteenth book in the series, and the story takes detours to Easy’s hilltop retreat where he lives with his adopted daughter, Feather. She is being sought out by an uncle she has never met, a hippie who has broken with his family and wants to connect. Those detours, while no doubt of interest to fans as part of a long story arc, have a tendency to slow the pace, even as the case itself becomes a series of confusing switchbacks.

When the police aren’t trying to arrest him for being Black and driving a handsome Rolls Royce in neighborhoods where his presence alone is considered suspicious, he’s meeting with a detective he trusts who needs to solve some of the murders that seem to follow in Easy’s wake. The plot becomes tangled, as hard to follow as some of Chandler’s more Byzantine plots, and it doesn’t help that nearly every character involved in the case is double-crossing one another.

While the plot is nearly impossible to follow and the pacing is uneven, the backdrop of a time and place is vividly, often poetically evoked. Easy’s observations about the inescapable racism of the world he lives in – the world we still live in – are a welcome reminder that the search for justice that crime fiction readers so often crave is elusive, even when the case is closed.