Cinnamon Kiss: A Novel [Hardcover]

Easy Rawlins is back in Walter Mosley's tenth novel in the series and is better than ever. He is so polished, shrewd, cool in the best sense of the word and altogether human. This time he is faced with every parent's nightmare, the possibility of a young child's dying from a rare illness. Most of the action is about his efforts-- by whatever means available-- to raise the necessary cash for expensive treatment for his daughter Feather in a hospital in Switzerland. Easy's woman Bonnie-- or is she?-- is back, along with his buddy Mouse and a host of other characters we remember from earlier novels. Mr. Mosley is nothing if not creative and we'd better not take him for granted. This is evident in the way this story ends; we see that Easy will go in a different direction in the next novel in the series.

As always, Mr. Mosley writes in concise, precise understated language. He is introspective about race in these United States in the 1960's-- sadly sometimes it seems as if little has changed since then-- without being didactic. He through Easy makes profound statements about the world: having a sense of humor is the best test of intelligence, black men who kill innocent people in far-away countries are no better than the whites who lynched blacks. Finally in Easy's own words when he and Mouse, as they are making a call from a phone booth, are approached by two white cops and questioned: "Most Americans wouldn't understand why two well-dressed men would have to explain why they were standing on a public street. But most Americans cannot comprehend the scrutiny that black people have been under since the days we were dragged here in bondage."

Even though Mr. Mosley always writes about race his characters are not just black and white. He has as many ways to describe skin color as Eskimos have of names for snow. In addition to just "brown," there is "medium brown," "toasted brown," "coffee brown," "high brown like a polished pecan," "light brown sugar," "sepia hue." Then we have "light-skinned," "sandpaper toned," and "high-yellow." Darker colors go from "walnut shelled," "almost jet skin," "dark-colored," the "color of tree bark," "dark-skinned," "very black,"-- and my favorite-- "skin black as an undertaker's shoes." Finally there are the reddish tones: "reddish-brown plantain" skin, "reddish hue," "terra cotta colored" and of course the beautiful character Cinnamon Cargill whose skin is described as "cinnamon red."

It is such a pleasure to read a new Rawlins mystery. Easy in a beautiful passage describes missing Bonnie and loneliness. "Never before could I fully trust another human being. If it was five in the morning and I'd been out all night I could call her [Bonnie] and she'd be there as fast as she could. . . Being with her made me understand how lonely I'd been for all my wandering years. But being alone again made me feel that I was back in the company of an old friend." Reading Mosley is just like being with an old friend. I have never read a better mystery writer.

Walter Mosley is one of the most versatile writers laboring in the field of modern fiction. Best known for his mysteries concerning Los Angeles private investigator Easy Rawlins, Mosley is not afraid to turn his talents to other genres, whether it be non-specific genre fiction, fantasy, or essays.

Rawlins, however, remains Mosley's most popular character from a commercial standpoint. Part hard-boiled, part historical fiction, part.something else, the book, like Mosley, defies easy classification. Rawlins moves through mid-20th century America part invisible man, part very visible man, a good man in a very bad world who is aware that survival depends on compromise but who ultimately remains true to himself.

CINNAMON KISS, Mosley's latest Easy Rawlins novel, is set in the mid-1960s. It is the Summer of Love, but Rawlins' concerns are much more basic. His daughter,Feather, is in need of immediate medical treatment that costs much more money than Rawlins could beg for or borrow. When Mouse, Rawlins's friend and occasional partner, approaches him with the prospect of a heist with minimal risk and a large payoff, Rawlins is tempted to compromise his principles for the greater good of financing Heather's treatment.

However, salvation comes from another direction, when Rawlins's friend Saul Lynx approaches him with a more legitimate offer. Robert Lee, an enigmatic private investigator in San Francisco, has been hired to locate Axel Bowers, a prominent Bay-area attorney, and his assistant, the beautiful and mysterious Cinnamon Cargill. Bowers and Cargill have gone missing with some documents belonging to Lee's client, who is willing to pay dearly to get them back.

Rawlins is able to find Bowers easily enough, but Cargill has seemingly vanished into the wind. In his search for Cargill, Rawlins learns that he is not only racing against the clock but also against a deadly assassin whose name is enough to cause even the most dangerous of men to exercise caution. Rawlins soon learns that he is a part of something far more extensive than a document retrieval matter, and that his involvement is bringing not only himself but also his friends and family into terrible danger.

CINNAMON KISS is perhaps the most ambitious of Mosley's Rawlins novels, and arguably his best. He avoids the overly complex plotting that has occasionally overtaken some of his other fine work, and instead chooses to focus on his always interesting and multi-dimensional characters. There are enough of them here to fill three books. One of the most interesting is Robert Lee, could be the basis for a series all by himself. Mosley's description of the man and his home are worth the price of admission alone, and it would be quite interesting to see Lee's and Mosley's paths cross uneasily a time or two again.

And, as with other Rawlins novels, CINNAMON KISS concludes with some resolutions and some beginnings, the better to prepare the legion of readers of this fine series for the next volume. It can't come too soon.

Others have explained the plot and talked about how much they
liked or disliked the story of _Cinnamon Kiss_. I'll skip that
here and write instead about my reaction to the character of Easy
Rawlins.

I've read almost all of the Easy Rawlins stories. Easy is the
same difficult, ambiguous man in each of them. He's tough and
street smart, but he's also haunted by memories of a difficult
southern childhood, of battles with both Germans and white
Americans in World War II, and of things he's done that he's not
proud of.

He's not a likeable man. He's not an easy man to deal with.
He's stubborn to the point of self-destructiveness. He pisses
off the only man who can save him or give him the money he needs
to save his daughter, simply because he can't stop himself from
asserting his equality with anyone. He turns down help he
desparately needs from a wealthy white woman who means well,
simply because he is too proud to expose his need and ask for
help. He has to do things his way, and only his way.

He is attracted to, and attractive to, women, but he doesn't
understand them and is unable to form permanent relationships.
He cares desparately about his children but is not altogether
able to understand them either. He lives in a sort of permanent
conflict with the world - never quite able to find peace.

Some reviewers here have disliked Rawlins for his sexism, or
loved him for his cool, his bravado, his excitement.

I can't really say I either like him or dislike him. He's too
difficult a person to really like, and too genuine to dislike. I
couldn't live the way he lives. I'm sure I couldn't walk in his
shoes.

He's a man with great strength, but with jagged edges and sharp
corners.

I don't believe we need to like a character to find him
fascinating and to want to read about him. Easy Rawlins is not a
man I'd want to live next door to. But he is a fascinating man.

Walter Mosley has a gift for creating characters that stand
outside the boundaries of ordinary middle class life. They are
men who can look at, but never enter into, the ordinary life.
They try to blend in, but they can't. It's not in them to be
satisfied, stable, ordinary men.

Easy Rawlins, Raymond Alexander, Socrates Fortlow (from another
Mosley series), and others are such characters. They give the
stories an edge that many other mysteries never achieve. They
are a main reason why I read these books.

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