New Releases by Walter Mosley

From New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley, this life-affirming novel about an aging bluesman in New York City and the neighbor who takes him in after he’s evicted is “a mesmerizing and redemptive tale of friendship, love, and forgiveness” (San Francisco Review of Books). Soupspoon Wise is alone and dying of cancer on the unforgiving streets of New York City, years and worlds away from the Mississippi delta, where he once jammed with blues legend Robert "RL" Johnson. It was an experience that burned indelibly into Soupspoon''s soul—never mind that they said RL''s gift came from the Devil himself. Now it''s Soupspoon''s turn to strike a deal with a stranger. A hard-drinking, swearing redhead from Arkansas, neighbor Kiki Waters isn''t much better off than Soupspoon, but she too is a child of the South, and knows its pull. And she is determined to let Soupspoon ride out the final notes of his haunting blues dream, to pour out the remarkable tale of what he''s seen, where he''s been—and where he''s going. Mosley creates a “a meditation on the history and meaning of the blues” (Entertainment Weekly) in R L’s Dream, which practically sings a soulful blues song itself.

"The newest of the great fictional detectives" (Boston Globe) from the New York Times bestselling author of the Easy Rawlins novels. When New York private eye Leonid McGill is hired to check up on a vulnerable young woman, all he discovers is a bloody crime scene-and the woman gone missing. His client doesn''t want her found. The reason will put everything McGill cherishes in harm''s way: his family, his friends, and his very soul.

Refusing to go to hell in spite of his technical disqualification from heaven, murdered African-American everyman Tempest Landry is sent back to Harlem, where a guiding angel tries to convince him to accept judgment.

No more excuses. "Let the lawn get shaggy and the paint peel from the walls," bestselling novelist Walter Mosley advises. Anyone can write a novel now, and in this essential book of tips, practical advice, and wisdom, Walter Mosley promises that the writer-in-waiting can finish it in one year. Mosley tells how to: - Create a daily writing regimen to fit any writer''s needs--and how to stick to it. - Determine the narrative voice that''s right for every writer''s style. - Get past those first challenging sentences and into the heart of a story. Intended as both inspiration and instruction, THIS YEAR YOU WRITE YOUR NOVEL provides the tools to turn out a first draft painlessly and then revise it into something finer.

Master storyteller Walter Mosley deftly mixes speculative and historical fiction in this daring New York Times bestselling novel, reminiscent of Colson Whitehead''s The Underground Railroad. 47 is a young slave boy living under the watchful eye of a brutal slave master. His life seems doomed until he meets a mysterious runaway slave, Tall John. 47 finds himself swept up in a struggle for his own liberation.

Socrates Fortlow, an ex-convict forced to define his own morality in a lawless world, confronts wrongs that most people would rather ignore and comes face-to-face with the most dangerous emotion: hope. It has been nine years since his release from prison, and he still makes his home in a two-room shack in a Watts alley. But he has a girlfriend now, a steady job, and he is even caring for a pet, the two-legged dog he calls Killer. These responsibilities make finding the right path even harder - especially when the police make Socrates their first suspect in every crime within six blocks.--BOOK JACKET. "In each chapter of Walkin'' the Dog, Socrates challenges a different conundrum of modern life. In "Blue Lightning, " he is offered a better-paying job but has to consider whether the extra pay is worth the freedom he would have to give up. In "Promise, " he keeps a vow made long ago to a dying friend, and learns that a promise to one person can mean damage to another. In "Mookie Kid, " he gets a telephone and,learns that the price of being able to reach others is that others can contact him - whether he wants to be reached or not."--BOOK JACKET. "Walkin'' the Dog builds to a stunning climax as Socrates takes on a rogue cop who has terrorized his neighborhood."--BOOK JACKET.

Easy Rawlins comes home from work, and finds more trouble on his doorstep in a day than most men encounter in a lifetime. A friend has left his daughter at Easy''s house without so much as a note. Clearly this friend, Christmas Black, a veteran of Vietnam, fears for his life and his daughter''s. Easy''s closest friend, the man known as Mouse, has disappeared too--and his wife tells Easy that he is wanted for murder. Mouse has been a thorn in the police''s side for so long that Easy is convinced that this time they will kill him as soon as they find him. Worst of all, Easy''s longtime lover tells him that she plans to marry another man. In a world of hurt, Easy strikes out on his own to try to find one friend, save another, and save himself from the pain that is driving him out of his mind. On his path he meets drug dealers, corrupt officials, every manner of criminal and con--and a woman named Faith who may hold the key to more than one life. In his tenth Easy Rawlins novel, Walter Mosley writes with a grace and insight that few writers ever achieve. It is the clearest proof yet that Walter Mosley is "one of this nation''s finest writers" (Boston Globe).

Enjoying a precarious sober life balancing family duties with his relationship with a patient mistress, Ben finds his years of alcoholism catching up with him when he encounters a woman with knowledge of a significant event from his past that Ben cannot r

The "New York Times" bestselling author of "Blue Light" returns to the realm of science fiction. Errol is awakened by a strange prank caller claiming to be his father, who has been dead for several years. Curious, and not a little unnerved, Errol sneaks into the graveyard where his father is buried. What he finds will change his life forever.

When Cordell Carmel catches his longtime girlfriend with another man, the experience dissolves his calm, everyday existence into a thirst for revenge and a sexual odyssey in search of a new way of life.

Merely hate: When a string of Muslim cabdrivers are killed, and the evidence points to another ethnic group, the detectives of the 87th Precinct must hunt down a killer before the city explodes in violence.

Fearless Jones and Paris Minton, stars of the bestsellers Fearless Jones and Fear Itself, return in a high-velocity, larger-than-life thriller about family, betrayal, and revenge. "I''m in trouble, Paris." Paris Minton has heard these words before. They mean only one thing: that his neck is on the line too. So when they are uttered by his lowlife cousin Ulysses S. Grant, Paris keeps the door firmly closed. With family like Ulysses -- useless to everyone except his mother -- who needs enemies? But trouble always finds an open window, and when "Useless" Ulysses'' mother, Three Hearts, shows up from Louisiana to look for her son, Paris has no choice but to track down his wayward cousin. Finding a con artist like Useless is easier said than done. But with the aid of his ear-to-the-ground friend Fearless Jones, Paris gets a hint that Useless may have expanded his range of enterprise to include blackmail. Now he has disappeared, and Paris''s mission is to discover whether he is hiding from his vengeful victims -- or already dead. Traversing the complicated landscape of 1950s Los Angeles, where a wrong look can get a black man killed, Paris and Fearless find desperate women, secret lives, and more than one dead body along the way. Fear of the Dark is filled with the sheer-nerve plotting and brilliant characterizations that prompted The Nation to credit Walter Mosley for "the finest detective oeuvre in American literature."

In spite of remarkable differences, Eric and Tommy are as close as brothers. Eric, a Nordic Adonis, is graced by a seemingly endless supply of good fortune. Tommy is a lame black boy, cursed with health problems, yet he remains optimistic and strong.After tragedy rips their makeshift family apart, the lives of these boys diverge astonishingly: Eric, the golden youth, is given everything but trusts nothing; Tommy, motherless and impoverished, has nothing, but feels lucky every day of his life. In a riveting story of modern-day resilience and redemption, the two confront separate challenges, and when circumstances reunite them years later, they draw on their extraordinary natures to confront a common enemy and, ultimately, save their lives.

The author of "Devil in a Blue Dress" offers a powerful examination of the American economic and political machine and challenges readers to cast off the chains of yesterday''s society, insisting that the nation and its potential are ours to command.

In this thrilling mystery, Easy Rawlins takes a job to find a missing attorney and his beautiful assistant—and faces danger around every corner. It is the Summer of Love and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armored car. It''s farther outside the law than Easy has ever traveled, but his daughter, Feather, needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it''s a cinch. Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy''s problem without jail time. He has to track the disappearance of an eccentric, prominent attorney. His assistant of sorts, the beautiful "Cinnamon" Cargill, is gone as well. Easy can tell there is much more than he is being told: Robert Lee, his new employer, is as suspect as the man who disappeared. But his need overcomes all concerns, and he plunges into unfamiliar territory, from the newfound hippie enclaves to a vicious plot that stretches back to the battlefields of Europe.

An irresistible story of love and death, this Easy Rawlins mystery takes place during the devastating 1965 Watts riots. Easy''s hunt for a killer reveals a new city emerging from the ashes -- and a new life for Easy and his friends.

A "taut collection" (USA TODAY) of seven stories featuring Easy Rawlins from New York Times bestselling and award-winning mystery writer Walter Mosley. In the "delectably hard-boiled" (Entertainment Weekly) Six Easy Pieces, beloved Ezekiel Rawlins now has a steady job as senior head custodian of Sojourner Truth High School, a nice house with a garden, a loving woman, and children. He counts the blessings of leading a law-abiding life but is nowhere near happy. Easy mourns the loss of his best friend, Mouse. Though he tries to leave the street life behind, he still finds himself trading favors and investigating cases of arson, murder, and missing people. People who can''t depend on the law to solve their problems, seek out Easy. A bomb is set in the high school where Easy works. A man''s daughter runs off with his employee. A beautiful woman turns up dead and the man who loved her is wrongly accused. Easy is the man people turn to in search of justice and retribution. He even becomes party to a killing that the police might call murder.

Mosley, like many New Yorkers, has tried to make sense of the events of 9/11 - and his own reaction to them. He remembered his father''s stories about World War II and how he didn''t think of himself as an American until German soldiers shot at him. How did he feel - and how did African Americans feel - about the unfolding debate of what brought America to this tragic juncture. Was the displacement his father felt, a half century ago, still a part of this new generations'' experience?In What Next, Mosley addresses these questions and others, inviting the reader into a dialogue that is brilliantly argued, and poetically concise. What Next offers food for thought and is a call to action for African Americans and freedom loving people everywhere.

Devil in a Blue Dress, a defining novel in Walter Mosley’s bestselling Easy Rawlins mystery series, was adapted into a TriStar Pictures film starring Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins and Don Cheadle as Mouse. Set in the late 1940s, in the African-American community of Watts, Los Angeles, Devil in a Blue Dress follows Easy Rawlins, a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend''s bar, wondering how he''ll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

Paris Minton is minding his own business when a beautiful woman named Elana Love walks into his bookstore. Within the next 24 hours, Paris has been beaten up, made love to, shot at, robbed, and his bookstore has been burned to the ground. He''s in so much trouble he has no choice but to get his friend Fearless Jones out of jail to help. Fearless Jones is an army veteran, a man who is proud of his accomplishments during World War II and refuses to step into the background now that the war is over. Violence dogs Fearless''s every step, and Paris has tried to keep his distance. But there''s no friend like the one you need.

A blue light crosses the universe and reaches earth, causing each person it strikes to evolve into the embodiment of their true nature.

An ex-con solves a mystery.

A collection of eleven wonderfully imaginative tales that both chill the spine and warm the heart. Each tale features a thick fog, a thick book, and a thick steak.

Nineteen-year-old Easy Rawlins and his friend Mouse become engulfed in a world of voodoo, revenge, and death, when they set out in 1939 to retrieve money from Mouse''s stepfather so that Mouse can marry EttaMae-- a girl with whom Easy was once involved.

With each succeeding mystery featuring his reluctant detective (and natural-born existentialist) Easy Rawlins, Walter Mosley gains new fans and builds on what is now recognized as a permanent addition to American crime writing. His current book is A Little Yellow Dog--another instant classic of suspense, style, and shrewd social observation.It''s 1964. Easy Rawlins has given up the street life that has brought him so much trouble and grief. He''s taken on a job as supervising custodian of Sojourner Truth Junior High School in Watts. For two years he''s been getting up early and going off to work. He wears nice clothes and puts all his energy-and love-into his job and his adopted children. Easy likes his new life, even though he feels empty and a little bored sometimes. But all that is about to change.Easy comes in early one morning to find one of the teachers already in her classroom. She has a dog with her and a story about a husband gone mad. Before Easy knows what''s happening, the teacher is in his arms. Before the day is over the teacher is gone, leaving Easy with her dog, and the handsomest corpse Easy has ever seen is found in the school garden. That night a second corpse turns up.Easy may have left the streets but he hasn''t been forgotten. The world is changing faster than he can keep up. The police believe that Easy is involved in the murders. Old enemies are waiting to get even. The principal of the school wants to fire him. His old friends aren''t the same and his new friends might be his death. Easy wants back into his careful little life, but that door is closed. A murderer is running loose somewhere. And a little yellow dog plots revenge.

Pressured by a racist IRS agent, Easy Rawlins agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church for the FBI and soon finds himself playing the roles of betrayed and betrayer as well as suspect

Mystery featuring black private eye Easy Rawlins.