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Walter Mosley may well be one of the most versatile writers of contemporary American fiction. While he is best known for his historical mystery novels featuring private investigator Easy Rawlins, he easily and fluidly works within other genres, such as science fiction and mainstream fiction. It is Rawlins, however, who is Mosley's bread and butter, and it is always a pleasure when Mosley returns to him and to mid-20th century Los Angeles. Mosley captures that era in the same manner as Raymond Chandler and Ross McDonald, but from a markedly different perspective.
Mosley's latest Rawlins novel arguably ranks among the best of Mosley's work; certainly it is one of his most accessible. Mosley's plots occasionally become so complex that the reader can become lost in the events. This is not the case with LITTLE SCARLET, though it is by no means a simple tale. It is a multi-layered story of complicated people and the wrong, unintended and otherwise, that is so often done.
LITTLE SCARLET takes place during and after the Watts race riots. While Rawlins doesn't condone the senselessness of the participants' actions, he does understand their rage and appreciates that a corner has been turned. It is against this backdrop that Rawlins finds himself summoned by the LAPD and asked to assist in the investigation of a murder. A woman named Nola Payne, known as Little Scarlet, was brutally murdered in her Watts apartment at the height of the riots. Payne had given shelter to an unknown white man who had been attacked by rioters; the man is now a suspect in the investigation of her murder.
The police are reticent to send white officers into the area due to the riots and feel that Rawlins's race, coupled with his abilities as an effective, albeit unofficial, private investigator, will be a better method of determining who murdered Payne. Rawlins, though not part of the riots, is feeling the exhilaration of the mood of the times and cannot resist repeatedly and, at times hilariously, bearding the police in their own den.
Rawlins also receives a letter of empowerment as a consultant from the Deputy Police Commissioner. This serves as an interesting plot vehicle, not only for getting Rawlins out of occasional jams, but also for increasing his stature among his friends, such as Raymond "Mouse" Alexander. There is one vignette involving Mouse, Rawlins and the letter that provides some comic relief in this otherwise grim story of duplicity, anger and forbidden passions. Rawlins discovers the identity of Payne's murderer soon enough, but the catalyst for the murderer's anger is a mystery until this fine work nears its conclusion. Along the way Rawlins grapples with a number of temptations of the flesh and spirit, trying to remain true to others but first and foremost to himself, a good man trying to stay that way in a flawed and dangerous world.
Rawlins has steadily developed and grown as a character and, like the work of his creator, is not easily defined or characterized. It is this quality, with Mosley's poetic turns of phrase, memorable characters and realistic settings that make LITTLE SCARLET, with his other work, such worthwhile reading.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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