A Little Yellow Dog

November 4, 2002
"You had to kill someone white to get any kind of news splash in the '60s," Easy Rawlins says of Los Angeles. In this fifth installment in the Easy Rawlins series, Mosley has allowed his character to evolve with age (the first book in the series took place in the mid-'40s). Tired of the street life, ex-hustler Rawlins has carved out a life on the straight and narrow, working for a public school and trying to raise his two adopted children. When the police suspect him of murder, he relies on his old street connections to help him out. Mosley is a master of dialogue and his quick-witted narrative is full of Chandler-esque twists. Weinberger is a natural Easy. With a voice that has the gravel of Jack Webb (minus the stiffness) and the confidence of Morgan Freeman, Weinberger takes listeners on what should be a smooth and exhilarating ride. However, the narration is riddled with so many small but distracting errors and slight misreadings that it shatters the suspension of disbelief. With a little more attention in the post–production phase, this fine, nine-hour foray into drama, intrigue, sex, hustling and murder could have been great. (July)FYI:When Little, Brown published Mosley's latest Easy Rawlins Mystery (
Bad Boy Brawly Brown) in July, it also reissued and repackaged six other Easy Rawlins novels. Audio Renaissance has followed suit with new audio productions of the novels.

June 30, 1997
Easy Rawlins's affair with a schoolteacher embroils him in murder.

Starred review from June 3, 1996
Easy Rawlins is back (after his last appearance in Black Betty), which is great news for readers intrigued by Mosley's noir L.A. settings and his resourceful, street-smart hero. It's the early 1960s, and Easy has settled for a quiet, respectable life, out of touch with his raffish old comrades, making a home for his two adopted kids, working as a maintenance supervisor at a public school in Watts. But dead bodies interfere with his solid existence: first, a well-dressed corpse shows up in the school gardens; next, the first corpse's twin is discovered at the home of an attractive teacher at the school who has disappeared--leaving Easy, who has enjoyed a quick tumble with her, to look after her little dog, Pharaoh. When white police (even an ambitious Latino sergeant) come sniffing around, Easy draws their close attention; in that time and place, independent black men were automatic suspects in any mayhem. It is Mosley's great gift to make the racist atmosphere palpable without rubbing it in, and to show the depths of courage and tenacity in his marginal characters without preachiness. In the violent events that build to a bloody climax on the day JFK is shot, Easy and his friends, despite all their failings, hold to a code that never falters, meeting the worst life can throw at them with humor and grit. Mosley's thrillers, always thrilling, are salutary as well. BOMC and QPB selections; author tour.