Walter Mosley

Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley. Easy Rawlins, a young African-American veteran trying to make a living in post WWII Los Angeles, becomes a reluctant detective when he is hired to track down a mysterious French woman who has disappeared with $30,000 that is not her own.

With more than thirty-four diverse, critically praised books to his credit, Walter Mosley occupies a unique place in American letters. He rose to literary stardom in the early 1990s with his Easy Rawlins novels, which constituted not only a riveting series of mysteries, but a social history of African-Americans ... (more)in post-World War II Los Angeles. Since then, he has written acclaimed literary fiction, science fiction, short fiction, young adult fiction, political essays, erotica, plays, and scripts for film and television. His work has earned him numerous awards, including PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Award, an O. Henry Award, and a Grammy. Widely regarded as a cultural statesman of the black community in particular, Mosley has also taken an active role in various literary, cultural, and educational organizations, including the National Book Foundation, the Mystery Writers of America, and the Poetry Society of America. In 2009, Mosley debuted a new mystery series featuring private investigator Leonid McGill – a black, middle-aged former boxer with an extremely complicated domestic life and a dark past who was instantly hailed as a "worthy successor" (San Francisco Chronicle) to the much-loved Easy Rawlins. Now, Mosley portrays a struggling, searching, but still strong McGill – bowed but not broken by family and financial crises, as well as the mixed legacy of his absent father and one of the most physically and emotionally demanding cases he's ever faced – in the third novel in the series, When the Thrill is Gone: A Leonid McGill Mystery. The first novel in the McGill series, The Long Fall, won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, and is a finalist for the International Association of Crime Writers Dashiell Hammett Award – Mosley's first nomination since the start of the Easy Rawlins series. The Long Fall also propelled Mosley back onto the New York Times bestsellers list and elicited a chorus of critical approval. The Washington Post, for example, wrote: "After Easy Rawlins and Paris Minton, Mosley's best-known creations, [Leonid] McGill is a welcome conundrum. A detective in the classic noir style – cynical, romantic, doomed – who exists not in the 1940s but today's New York City, this African-American boxer with a deceased communist father (hence Leonid) listens to the BBC and practices Buddhist meditation. But don't get nervous; there's nothing New Age about McGill's struggle to ‘go from crooked to slightly bent’. . . . Mosley cinches [the] plots elegantly together as he moves McGill between the worlds of new and old money and into the lives of crooks, cops and every species in between. We follow eagerly, seduced by Mosley's laconic style and by a newly arrived hero who seems to have been around forever." The second McGill mystery, Known to Evil, was equally heralded. The Boston Globe wrote: "Walter Mosley gives us a New York City as vivid as Easy Rawlins's Watts. ... Very little about this novel is predictable. ... Complex plotting never loses the reader as multiple stories intertwine, heaping woe upon woe and ratcheting the stakes for a man who has learned to hold life at arm's length. The writing is minimalist prose with poetry mixed in, making the pages pure pleasure to turn." When the Thrill is Gone finds McGill attempting to locate the missing wife of a Fifth Avenue billionaire – an African-American woman from humble roots who has become a successful artist. She's most likely in trouble – big trouble. The white billionaire's first two wives met violent and unexplained ends, and the body of a woman pretending to be the third wife has turned up in a compost heap in the East Village, leaving McGill in charge of five orphans. So far, he’s been paid twenty-two thousand dollars of urgently needed cash, but he has yet to figure out a way to accomplish his task. On top of that, one of the most ruthless mobsters in America – the kind of people McGill is desperately trying to get away from as he seeks to redeem the sins of his former life, which included framing innocent people – has asked him for a personal favor. Since the man was one of his vanished father's best friends, McGill can hardly say no, but the errand has got him stewing over unresolved issues from his youth. And although McGill's America is emphatically multiracial, it is assuredly not postracial. He still gets hassled by the cops simply for standing on the sidewalk in the middle of the day in a residential neighborhood. But home is no refuge for McGill. His stunning blonde wife, Katrina, has just ended one affair and started another, with potentially dangerous consequences for the entire family. His favorite son, Twill, has dropped out of high school and is behind some kind of highly profitable but no doubt illegal scheme. The other son, Dimitri, has disappeared with his ex-girlfriend, a former Russian sex slave. McGill's Upper West Side apartment has been turned into a hospice for his best friend and second father, Gordo, a boxing trainer suffering from cancer. Nor do McGill's extramarital pursuits provide any relief. His gorgeous on-again, off-again girlfriend, Aura, would like to move forward with their relationship, but fears that McGill won't live long enough to make it worthwhile. Relying on his instincts, his fists, and his tech-savvy support staff, McGill draws closer to his quarry. But so does a frighteningly efficient killer whose motives and paymaster remain unclear. For advice, McGill turns to his old associate Hush, an ex-assassin who, like McGill, is trying to atone for detestable deeds. Yet it is McGill alone who must face the killer and assemble the interlocking pieces of Mosley's ingenious, intricate puzzle. When the Thrill is Gone is quintessential Mosley, sure to delight his longtime fans and expand his ever-growing audience. As the Los Angeles Times has written of his previous work, "Mosley’s wild and woolly pacing, the events and the larger-than-life characters are refreshing examples of why the best pulp fiction continues to be so revered." And as the Austin Chronicle has observed, –Mosley is one of the most humane, insightful, powerful prose stylists working today in any genre. He's also one of the most radical .... Immerse yourself in the work of one of our national treasures." If you cannot attend the reading, but would like a signed copy of When the Thrill is Gone: A Leonid McGill Mystery, you may reserve it at http://acappellabooks.com/ev_mosley.a... .

Leonid McGill is back, in the third-and most enthralling and ambitious-installment in Walter Mosley's latest New York Times- bestselling series. The economy has hit the private-investigator business hard, even for the detective designated as "a more than worthy successor to Philip Marlowe" (The Boston ... (more)Globe) and "the perfect heir to Easy Rawlins" (Toronto Globe and Mail). Lately, Leonid McGill is getting job offers only from the criminals he's worked so hard to leave behind. Meanwhile, his life grows ever more complicated: his favorite stepson, Twill, drops out of school for mysteriously lucrative pursuits; his best friend, Gordo, is diagnosed with cancer and is living on Leonid's couch; his wife takes a new lover, infuriating the old one and endangering the McGill family; and Leonid's girlfriend, Aura, is back but intent on some serious conversations... So how can he say no to the beautiful young woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash? She's an artist, she tells him, who's escaped from poverty via marriage to a rich collector who keeps her on a stipend. But she says she fears for her life, and needs Leonid's help. Though Leonid knows better than to believe every word, this isn't a job he can afford to turn away, even as he senses that-if his family's misadventures don't kill him first-sorting out the woman's crooked tale will bring him straight to death's door. Walter Mosley is one of the most versatile and admired writers in America today. He is the author of more than 34 critically acclaimed books, including the major bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins. His work has been translated into 21 languages and includes literary fiction, science fiction, political monographs, and a young adult novel. His short fiction has been widely published, and his nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The Nation, among other publications. He is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, a Grammy and PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in New York City. Leonid McGill 1. The Long Fall (2009) 2. Known to Evil (2010) Signed 3. When the Thrill is Gone (2011) The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey Signed (2010) Fearless Jones 1. Fearless Jones (2001) 2. Fear Itself (2003) Signed 3. Fear of the Dark (2006) Easy Rawlins 1. Devil in a Blue Dress (1990) 2. A Red Death (1991) 3. White Butterfly (1992) 4. Black Betty (1994) 5. A Little Yellow Dog Signed(1995) 6. Gone Fishin' (1996) 7. Bad Boy Brawly Brown (2000) 8. Six Easy Pieces (2003) 9. Little Scarlet (2004) Signed 10. Cinnamon Kiss (2005) 11. Blonde Faith (2007)

Mon. March 29: Walter Mosley signs Known to Evil

Harvard Book Store is delighted to welcome the legendary WALTER MOSLEY for a presentation of the first book in his brand-new mystery series, The Long Fall.

A brand-new character, city, and mystery series from one of the country's best-known, best-loved writers: Walter Mosley. SYNOPSIS: His name is etched on the door of his Manhattan office: LEONID McGILL, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. Ex-boxer, hard drinker: McGill's an old-school P.I. working New York City in ... (more)the twenty-first century; a city full of secrets-and still a place that reacts when you know where to poke and which string to pull. And we learn that with this protagonist, this city, this time, Mosley has tapped a rich new vein that's inspiring his best work since the classic Devil in a Blue Dress.

Walter Mosley, author of the classic Devil in a Blue Dress and other Easy Rawlins mysteries, presents a brand new mystery series with a new character, a new city, and a new era in The Long Fall. Mosley’s awards include an O’Henry Prize, the 1996 Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s ... (more)Literary Award and a Grammy Award for his liner notes accompanying “Richard Pryor: And It’s Deep Too!”

New York Times best-seller / Edgar Award winner Walter Mosley will sign & discuss the first in a new private eye series, The Long Fall (Riverhead; $25.95). His name is etched on the door of his Manhattan office: LEONID McGILL , PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. It’s a name that takes a little explaining, ... (more)but he’s used to it. “Daddy was a communist and great-great-Granddaddy was a slave master from Scotland. You know, the black man’s family tree is mostly root. Whatever you see aboveground is only a hint at the real story.”

Mosley, a master of detective stories best known for his Easy Rawlins series, introduces Leonid McGill, a reformed bad man who strives to hold to his own principles in the roughest situations. Cops don't trust him, hard guys pressure him, and most people underestimate him.

Join us as we discuss Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley.

Brooklyn Book Festival 2008 BoBi Literary Award winner Walter Mosley reads and discusses his work and the social constructs that shape his fiction and non-fiction. Followed by Q&A.

Walter Mosley, a recipient of the PEN USA hailed by The Boston Globe as “one of the nation’s finest writers,” is the author of the Easy Rawlins mystery novel Devil in a Blue Dress, in addition to New York Times bestsellers Bad Boy Brawly Brown and Little Scarlet. Mosley was a recipient of the PEN ... (more)USA Lifetime Achievement Award. Mosley’s short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy and GQ. He will lecture as part of the Black Studies Program’s Black Aspirations Celebration, a weeklong series of events. His visit is part of the Tombouctou Book Club author series, and is sponsored by the Dean’s Office of CSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, the CSU Black Studies Program, CSU’s Office of Alumni Affairs, CSU’s Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, the Northeast Ohio NEOMFA Program and the CSU Department of English. A reception and book-signing will follow Mr. Mosley’s talk.