Charcoal Joe

Zusatztext 44987811 Informationen zum Autor Walter Mosley is the author of fifty books! most notably fourteen Easy Rawlins mysteries! the first of which! Devil in a Blue Dress ! was made into an acclaimed film starring Denzel Washington. Always Outnumbered ! adapted from his first Socrates Fortlow novel! was an HBO film starring Laurence Fishburne. Mosley is the winner of numerous awards! including an O. Henry Award! a Grammy Award! and PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has just been named the 2016 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. A Los Angeles native and a graduate of Goddard College! he holds an MFA from the City College of New York and now lives in Brooklyn. 1 On Robertson Boulevard a block and a half north of Pico, just south of Whitworth Drive, on the eastern side of the street, there once stood a three-story turquoise building that had been a posh home in the thirties. But the owner died, leaving his real-estate-rich, cash-poor relatives to turn the domicile into a commercial property. By 1968 the first floor had become an antique-furniture shop where fifty-something Mrs. Ina Holloway sold old sofas, chairs, and dining tables of dubious pedigree to middle-aged women from Cheviot Hillswomen who wanted to make their interior decorations equal in style, if not in value, to their wealthier counterparts' in nearby Beverly Hills. The second floor was occupied by an insurance brokerage firm owned and run by Harry (born Hiro) Harada. To hear him tell it, Harry sold insurance on everything from life expectancy to pet health and marriage vows. Harry's wife and daughter, son, and daughter-in-law all worked in his second-floor office. Only Harada's gaijin son-in- law no longer worked for the old man; this because he had been in prison for a crime he confessed to, embezzlement. He, Arnold Sandy Patterson, was convicted on evidence that was not vetted by the defense or the prosecutionevidence that would not have stood up under scrutiny. The police detective who interrogated Sandy accepted his confession of having stolen money that Harry's strawberry-farmer client, Gentaro Takeda, had entrusted to the company: $131,247.29. The money Gentaro gave had been in cash, and the day that everyone agreed that Sandy had taken it he was under the knife at Cedars of Lebanon for an emergency appendectomy. Indeed, it was Harry himself who had taken the money, believing that his client was senile and probably wouldn't remember anything about the transaction. So three days later, when the elderly Mr. Takeda returned with his son Ishi to ask for the money back, Harry felt that he was safe in saying he had never received the cash in question. Mr. Gentaro had once told him, Harry claimed, that he wanted to have Harry invest some money but he had never given him the cash. After the Takedas left, Mitsue, Harry's daughter, told him that the day after Gentaro had been there he returned saying that he had not gotten a receipt from her father. Harry was at a convention in San Diego so she looked up the transaction in his day journal, saw that no receipt had been issued, and had filled out one of the pre-signed receipts that Harry kept in the safe just in case the family had to do business in his absence. That right there was the moment of truth for Harry Harada. Gentaro didn't seem to remember any receipt and Ishi hadn't mentioned one. Harry's greed outweighed his morality; it convinced him that the dotty old man probably lost the voucher and that the money, all cash, could not be traced. He told his daughter to forget the receipt and the visit. When Ishi pressed charges in Gentaro's name, Harry stuck to his story. But, three months later, when the receipt Mitsue provided resurfaced, a warrant was issued for Harry's arrest. He had testified under oath that he never received monies from Gentaro and had therefore broken th...

"Though the year is flower-powered 1968, or 20 years removed from the life-threatening scuffles of Devil in a Blue Dress, life is no less easy for a black man in L.A. to 'pass from white dreams into black and brown realities'...As ever, Easy finds a way to rise above such circumstances — and the heartbreak of losing Bonnie to a marked-for-death African royal who needs her more than he does — and cling to his sense of decency."
— Lloyd Sachs, Chicago Tribune

"I'd know that voice anywhere. It's the seductive drawl and lowdown dirty laugh of Walter Mosley's mellow private eye, Easy Rawlins. And he's talking his way through another case in Charcoal Joe...because he isn't ashamed to declare himself 'a man of strategy'— a man unfraid to lower his fists and use his brain."
—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

"Picking up where his last adventures in Rose Gold left off in L.A. in the late 1960s, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins finds his life in transition...Between his new company, a heart that should be broken but is not, a whole raft of new bad guys on his tail, and a bad odor that surrounds Charcoal Joe, Easy has his hands full, his horizons askew, and his life in shambles around his feet."
—***Criminalelement.com

*"In the course of the Rawlins novels, Mosley has explored the evolution of Los Angeles over several decades, from the post-war period to the political and social changes that occurred in the 1960s...Mosley’s most recent novel with Rawlins at its center is set in the late 1960s. Rawlins has set up a small office with two fellow gumshoes, and he quickly becomes immersed in an intricate case involving an ambiguous underworld fixture, an ambitious young scientist, a book written in a mysterious language, and a pile of missing money. Fearless Jones also puts in an appearance, and Mosley adds a few literary nods, including a Franz Kafka homage and an ongoing discussion of William Styron’s then-contemporary novel The Confessions of Nat Turner."
—Tobias Carroll, Signature

"Picking up where his last adventures in Rose Gold left off in L.A. in the late 1960s, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins finds his life in transition...Between his new company, a heart that should be broken but is not, a whole raft of new bad guys on his tail, and a bad odor that surrounds Charcoal Joe, Easy has his hands full, his horizons askew, and his life in shambles around his feet."
—Readincolour.com

"In his 14th Easy Rawlins mystery (after Rose Gold), Mosley returns to L.A. in the late 1960s, with its racial unrest and discrimination...The story continues with more deception, murders, and violence. Like peeling an onion, Easy uncovers the truth one layer at a time...Mosley's exciting and profound mysteries with their poetic prose and historical clarity fascinate readers because Easy moves so smoothly among different worlds. His latest will please his many fans." 
 — Jerry P. Miller, Library Journal
 

"In Charcoal Joe, this series’ army of followers will happily recognize the case as the mere backdrop for Easy’s emotionally charged story, insightful lens into L.A.’s 1960s streets, and always-impressive mental acrobatics."
—Booklist

"[Charcoal Joe] is a must for Easy Rawlins fans and anyone who appreciates fresh, powerful prose.
 —Publishers Weekly [Starred]

“Fasten your seat belts. It's time for another simmering tour of Los Angeles, this time in 1968, with Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins serving once more as the unwilling guide. Read Mosley…for his matchless ability to present mosaic worlds in which even the most minor characters arrive burning with their own unquenchable stories.”
—***Kirkus Reviews

Autorentext
Walter Mosley is the author of fifty books, most notably fourteen Easy Rawlins mysteries, …