BLOOD GROVE (2021)
By Walter Mosley
Mulholland Books, 308 pages.
★★★ ½
Those who saw the 1995 movie Devil in a Blue Dress might remember that Denzel Washington played World War II veteran-turned-private detective Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins. Easy has been an ongoing character in 14 previous Walter Mosely novels and is the protagonist of his latest, Blood Grove. Rawlins has been called the black analog to Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and that’s completely by design; he was one of Mosely’s inspirations. Easy is a no-nonsense, tough-talking, don’t-cross-me kind of guy. He is slow to anger, but not one who walks away from a fight that comes to his doorstep.
In previous novels Easy lived in Watts, but in this one he has more posh digs–courtesy of a 99-year lease–to house his son and two adopted children. It’s in Brighthope Canyon, high above parts of Los Angeles that make him uncomfortable. It’s 1969, and Easy has issues with both the black and white counterculture. Mostly he just wants white cops to stop hassling him; he hates calling upon his white LAPD connections to get the racists off his back so he can run his detective agency in peace. Alas, Easy picks a bad case that brings him more grief than peace and quiet.
He is approached by Craig Kilian for help and everything about the guy tells Easy to walk away. He says Easy was recommended by Kirkland Larker, but that name rings no bells. Craig is a white Vietnam vet who is clearly suffering from PTSD and has a cockamamie story he’d like Easy to investigate. Craig claims he was in Blood Grove, so-named because of its orange trees, when he heard a woman with a dog screaming and witnessed a black man holding a knife. He thinks he saved her but that he might have killed the knife-wielder before someone else knocked him unconscious. Craig would like Easy to find out if he was an accidental murderer. It sounds fishier than an aquarium, but because Craig reminded Easy of a traumatized German he chose not to kill during his war, he agrees to poke around.
How many good detective novels begin with a variant of opening Pandora’s box? There’s no body, no woman, and no dog to be found–just lots of LAPD’s non-finest who, in turns, harass Easy, bust him, and threaten his life. Before you can say “WTF,” Easy is thrown in a helter-skelter vortex of sleazy real estate developers, contractor financial hanky-panky, a heist, competing mobs, and Lola, Craig’s mother. You probably know that the flesh of a blood orange is red in color; it’s a metaphor for the blood that flows in this tale. It is leavened with a bevy of femme fatales, strippers, hookers, and a French woman with the hots for Easy. Moreover, every time Rawlins turns around there’s another body to which he could be connected, especially when one of those femme fatales with whom he’s been in contact ends up just being a femme fatal. As if he doesn’t have enough grief from the LAPD, the FBI is also suspicious of him.
How is a guy who is trying to be a good dad to his kids keep them safe when he’s in hot water more often than the main course at a lobster pond? Try being a black man in 1969 and explaining that the bright yellow Rolls Royce you’re driving is collateral for the $80,000 he's owed from a client. The white characters are pretty shady, but the same is true for some of the black ones, including those on Easy’s side, like Mouse, a guy you definitely don’t want to anger. As in most such novels, Easy has to wiggle out of bad situations and near-certain death with great regularity until the case is cracked.
Formulaic? Of course. That’s pretty much the structure of every crime writer since Dashiell Hammett and, well, Raymond Chandler. Easy Rawlins is 50 years old in this, the 15th novel in the series. Logic says he should be thinking more about kicking back and relaxing in his new digs but somehow, I doubt that he will. For a guy nicknamed Easy, trouble seems to find him no matter how high above it he dwells. Plus, why would a writer like Mosely retire a character who thrills us time and again?
Rob Weir
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