Cinnamon Kiss

From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. As shown in the superb 10th entry in Mosley's Easy Rawlins series (_Devil in a Blue Dress_, etc.), Easy's progress is never smooth and his achievements (responsible job, son and daughter both flowering, loving woman in his house, friends and even a grudging respect from local authorities) always fragile. Now, at the height of the Vietnam War era, it all threatens to collapse. Daughter Feather's mysterious illness is the proximate cause, and only an expensive Swiss clinic offers hope. Needing the nearly impossible sum of $35,000, Easy considers assisting his dangerous pal, Raymond "Mouse" Alexander, with a robbery. But he decides instead to try his luck on a missing persons job brokered by white friend and PI Saul Lynx. Easy leaves Los Angeles for San Francisco, where his new employer puts him on the trail of a wealthy and eccentric lawyer and the lawyer's exotic lover, a girl known as Cinnamon, who have disappeared. As ever, Mosley is able to capture the era—hippies, Watts, communes—in brief strokes that provide a brilliant background to Easy's search for solutions to both a convoluted mystery and complex personal problems. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

FromThe Easy Rawlins novels comment sharply on America in the second half of the twentieth century. Though Easy is African-American, both black and white readers have embraced the novels. Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), the first in the series, chronicled post-World War II America; last year’s Little Scarlet depicted the Watts Riots. This time, the Summer of Love, antiwar protests, and the nation’s growing awareness of civil rights form a convincing backdrop for Easy’s divided America. Some parts of the novel are uncharacteristically melodramatic and unsophisticated; The Washington Post even called Cinnamon an extraneous character. Minor complaints, really. Notes Entertainment Weekly: "Mosley could probably take an elderly Easy into the Rodney King era with no problem at all."

Copyright © 2004 Phillips Nelson Media, Inc.