A HARD, DARK COMFORT: WALTER MOSLEY'S FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE

Walter Mosley'S latest Easy Rawlins mystery, FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE operates as a version of hard boiled comfort food. The plot even gets kicked off by an old P.I.. standard with an alluring dame, walking into Easy's office. Amethystine Stoller asks Easy to find her missing white ex-husband. Her seductiveness comes in part from reminding Easy of an early and dangerous love from his Texas youth. There is also the plot device of a second mystery with the disappearance of Marvin Suggs, one of Easy's few allies in the LAPD.

The mystery Easy follows is not as involving or unique as many in his past. It contains many of the familiar tropes of blackmail, betrayal, and of course murder. I wished Mosely leaned in more INto the Marvin Suggs storyline where Easy has to operate without the main white cop who protects him.

However he brings everything we love about the Easy Rawlins series to the game. He knows it Is about traveling with Easy through his Compton community. We spend quality time with his friends and family. Both Mouse and Fearless Jones have his back and we get introduced to Vu VAn ihn, Mouse's Vietnamese girlfreind who carries a disctinct scar and some lethal skills. The seventies L.A. both author and detective operate in is one on unsure racial footing, The color line has blurred, yet institutional and personal racism are still deeply entrenched. This story portrays Mosley's social curiosity on on the mainstream white world entering Easy's and the friction that causes. All of this is told in Easy's heartfelt voice on Mosley's Coltrane lyrical prose.

There may be a familiarity to FAREWELL, AMETHYSTINE, but it executed with weight and style. If this review made it sound like a fast food burger, that's not the case. Mosley has served up that satisfying sirloin you go to your favorite steakhouse every month for.