
Walter Mosley is one of America's most celebrated and beloved writers. His books have won numerous awards and have been translated into more than twenty languages.
Walter Mosley is the author of Devil in a Blue Dress, A Red Death, White Butterfly, Black Betty and A Little Yellow Dog in the Easy Rawlins mystery series; and RL's Dream, a blues novel.
Mr. Mosley is the past president of the Mystery Writers of America, a member of the executive board of the PEN American Center as well as the National Book Foundation (sponsors of the National Book Awards). He also serves on PEN's Open Book Committee, a group working to increase the presence of African Americans and others in the publishing community. A native of Los Angeles, Walter Mosley now lives in New York City.
Read the transcript of an On-line chat with Walter Mosley from BarnesandNoble.com dated Thursday, November 13, 1997.
Walter Mosley Discusses His Novels and Writing at the National Black Book Festival (June 2012)

Walter Mosley and Howard Zinn Video (July 2007)
Black
Pulp
Click to Buy from Amazon
Paperback: 308 pages
Publisher: Pro Se Productions! (April 17, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1484135717
ISBN-13: 978-1484135716
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
BLACK PULP is a collection of stories featuring characters of African origin, or descent, in stories that run the gamut of genre fiction!
A concept developed by noted crime novelist Gary Phillips, BLACK PULP brings bestselling authors Walter Mosley and Joe R. Lansdale, Gary Phillips, Charles R. Saunders, Derrick Ferguson, D. Alan Lewis, Christopher Chambers, Mel Odom, Kimberly Richardson, Ron Fortier, Michael A. Gonzales, Gar Anthony Haywood, and Tommy Hancock together to craft adventure tales, mysteries, and more, all with black characters at the forefront!
“Literature for the masses kindled the imagination and used our
reading skills so that we could regale ourselves in the cold chambers of
alienation and poverty. We could become Doc Savage or The Shadow, Conan
the Barbarian or the brooding King Kull and make a difference in a world
definitely gone wrong.”
—Walter Mosley from his introduction. Between these covers are 12
tales of action, adventure, and thrills featuring heroes and heroines of
darker hues that will appeal to audiences everywhere! BLACK PULP! From
Pro Se Productions!
Little
Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Doubleday (May 14, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385535988
ISBN-13: 978-0385535984
Easy Rawlins is back (almost literally from the dead after the car wreck
that ended Blonde Faith, his last outing) and cruising the hippified streets
of the Sunset Strip circa 1967, in search of a young black man who has gone
missing—and maybe of his own rebirth.
Walter Mosley burst on the literary scene in 1990 with Devil in a Blue Dress
(recently named one of the L.A. Times's best novels about L.A.), the first
Easy Rawlins mystery, a combustible and irresistible mixture of Raymond
Chandler and Richard Wright that future president Bill Clinton picked up on,
as did hundreds of thousands of other readers. Eleven books later, Easy
Rawlins is one of the small handful of private eyes in contemporary crime
fiction who can be called immortal. So it is great news on every front that
this major figure's new mystery features the return of his signature and
most resonant character.
Parishioner
(Vintage Crime/Black Lizard eBook)
Click to order via Amazon
Print Length: 279 pages
Publisher: Vintage (December 18, 2012)
Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
Language: English
A brand-new, eBook original crime novel from bestselling author Walter
Mosley, Parishioner is a portrait of a hardened criminal who regrets his
past, but whose only hope for redemption is to sin again.
In a small town situated between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, a simple
church of white stone sits atop a hill on the coast. This nameless house of
worship is a sanctuary for the worst kinds of sinners: the congregation and
even the clergy have broken all ten Commandments and more. Now they have
gathered to seek forgiveness. Xavier Rule—Ecks to his friends—didn’t come to
California in search of salvation but, thanks to the grace of this church,
he has begun to learn to forgive himself and others for past misdeeds. One
day a woman arrives to seek absolution for the guilt she has carried for
years over her role in a scheme to kidnap three children and sell them on
the black market. As part of atoning for his past life on the wrong side of
the law, Ecks is assigned to find out what happened to the abducted
children. As he follows the thin trail of the twenty-three-year-old crime,
he must struggle against his old, lethal instincts—and learn when to give in
to them.
All
I Did Was Shoot My Man (Leonid McGill Mystery)
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (January 24, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 159448824X
ISBN-13: 978-1594488245
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
In the latest and most surprising novel in the bestselling Leonid McGill
series, Leonid finds himself caught between his sins of the past and an
all-too-vivid present.
Seven years ago, Zella Grisham came home to find her man, Harry Tangelo, in
bed with her friend. The weekend before, $6.8 million had been stolen from
Rutgers Assurance Corp., whose offices are across the street from where
Zella worked. Zella didn't remember shooting Harry, but she didn't deny it
either. The district attorney was inclined to call it temporary
insanity-until the police found $80,000 from the Rutgers heist hidden in her
storage space.
For reasons of his own, Leonid McGill is convinced of Zella's innocence. But
as he begins his investigation, his life begins to unravel. His wife is
drinking more than she should. His oldest son has dropped out of college and
moved in with an ex-prostitute. His youngest son is working for him and
trying to stay within the law. And his father, whom he thought was long
dead, has turned up under an alias.
A gripping story of murder, greed, and retribution, All I Did Was Shoot My
Man is also the poignant tale of one man's attempt to stay connected to his
family.
Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation
Click to order via Amazon
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: Nation Books (April 26, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1568586426
ISBN-13: 978-1568586427
Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 4.9 x 0.4 inch
In his late teens and early twenties, Walter Mosley was addicted to alcohol and cigarettes. Drawing from this intimate knowledge of addiction and recovery, Mosley explores the deviances of contemporary America and describes a society in thrall to its own consumption. Although Americans live in the richest country on earth, many citizens exist on the brink of poverty, and from that profound economic inequality stems self-destructive behavior.
In Twelve Steps to Political Revelation, Mosley outlines a guide to recovery from oppression. First we must identify the problems that surround us. Next we must actively work together to create a just, more holistic society. And finally, power must be returned to the embrace of the people.
Challenging and original, Recovery confronts both self-understanding and how we define ourselves in relation to others.
Thom Hartmann is speaks Walter Mosley about
his book ’Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation’
When
the Thrill is Gone
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; First Edition edition (March 8, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594487812
ISBN-13: 978-1594487811
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
Leonid McGill is back, in the third-and most enthralling and
ambitious-installment in Walter Mosley’s latest New York Times- bestselling
series.
The economy has hit the private-investigator business hard, even for the
detective designated as ’a more than worthy successor to Philip Marlowe’
(The Boston Globe) and ’the perfect heir to Easy Rawlins’ (Toronto Globe and
Mail). Lately, Leonid McGill is getting job offers only from the criminals
he’s worked so hard to leave behind. Meanwhile, his life grows ever more
complicated: his favorite stepson, Twill, drops out of school for
mysteriously lucrative pursuits; his best friend, Gordo, is diagnosed with
cancer and is living on Leonid’s couch; his wife takes a new lover,
infuriating the old one and endangering the McGill family; and Leonid’s
girlfriend, Aura, is back but intent on some serious conversations’
So how can he say no to the beautiful young woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash? She’s an artist, she tells him, who’s escaped from poverty via marriage to a rich collector who keeps her on a stipend. But she says she fears for her life, and needs Leonid’s help. Though Leonid knows better than to believe every word, this isn’t a job he can afford to turn away, even as he senses that-if his family’s misadventures don’t kill him first-sorting out the woman’s crooked tale will bring him straight to death’s door.
The
Last Days of Ptolemy Grey
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (November 11, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594487723
ISBN-13: 978-1594487729
"The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey is a beautiful meditation on
love, frailty and old age. Filled with Walter Mosley's signature
humor and narrative mastery, it is as much a page turner as it
is a heart tugger. It is a novel that stays with you long after
you read the last word and immediately urges you to read it
again." -Edwidge Danticat
A masterful, moving novel about age, memory, and family from one
of the true literary icons of our time.
Ptolemy Grey is ninety-one years old and has been all but
forgotten-by his family, his friends, even himself-as he sinks
into a lonely dementia. His grand-nephew, Ptolemy's only
connection to the outside world, was recently killed in a
drive-by shooting, and Ptolemy is too suspicious of anyone else
to allow them into his life. until he meets Robyn, his niece's
seventeen-year-old lodger and the only one willing to take care
of an old man at his grandnephew's funeral.
But Robyn will not tolerate Ptolemy's hermitlike existence. She
challenges him to interact more with the world around him, and
he grasps more firmly onto his disappearing consciousness.
However, this new activity pushes Ptolemy into the fold of a
doctor touting an experimental drug that guarantees Ptolemy
won't live to see age ninety- two but that he'll spend his last
days in feverish vigor and clarity. With his mind clear, what
Ptolemy finds-in his own past, in his own apartment, and in the
circumstances surrounding his grand-nephew's death-is shocking
enough to spur an old man to action, and to ensure a legacy that
no one will forget.
In The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Mosley captures the
compromised state of his protagonist's mind with profound
sensitivity and insight, and creates an unforgettable pair of
characters at the center of a novel that is sure to become a
true contemporary classic.
Known
to Evil (2nd Leonid McGill Mystery)
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (March 23, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594487529
ISBN-13: 978-1594487521
Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
The Walter
Mosley and his new hero, Leonid McGill, are back in the new New
York Times-bestselling mystery series that's already being
hailed as a classic of contemporary noir.
Leonid McGill'the protagonist introduced in The Long Fall, the
book that returned Walter Mosley to bestseller lists
nationwide is still fighting to stick to his reformed ways while
the world around him pulls him in every other direction. He has
split up with his girlfriend, Aura, because his new self won't
let him leave his wife'but then Aura's new boyfriend starts
angling to get Leonid kicked out of his prime,
top-of-the'skyscraper office space. Meanwhile, one of his sons
seems to have found true love'but the girl has a shady past
that's all of a sudden threatening the whole McGill family'and
his other son, the charming rogue Twilliam, is doing nothing but
enabling the crisis.
Most ominously of all, Alfonse Rinaldo, the mysterious
power-behind-the-throne at City Hall, the fixer who seems to
control every little thing that happens in New York City, has a
problem that even he can't fix and he's come to Leonid for help.
It seems a young woman has disappeared, leaving murder in her
wake, and it means everything to Rinaldo to track her down. But
he won't tell McGill his motives, which doesn't quite square
with the new company policy but turning down Rinaldo is almost
impossible to even contemplate.
Known to Evil delivers on all the promise of the characters and
story lines introduced in The Long Fall, and then some. It
careens fast and deep into gritty, glittery contemporary
Manhattan, making the city pulse in a whole new way, and it
firmly establishes Leonid McGill as one of the mystery world's
most iconic, charismatic leading men.
The
Long Fall: The First Leonid McGill Mystery
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (March 24, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1594488584
"The Long Fall is an astounding performance by a master, a searing X-ray of grasping, conspiratorial New York and of the penitent soul of a wily, battle-scarred private-eye. Dark: because it takes us express to the lower depths. Beautiful: because Mosley never leaves us without light. This is, simply, Mosley's best work yet."
-Junot Diaz
A brand-new mystery series from one of the country's best-known, best-loved writers: a new character, a new city, a new era. A new Walter Mosley.
His name is etched on the door of his Manhattan office: LEONID
McGILL , PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. It's a name that takes a little
explaining, but he's used to it. Daddy was a communist and
great-great- Granddaddy was a slave master from Scotland. You
know, the black man's family tree is mostly root. Whatever you
see aboveground is only a hint at the real story.
Ex-boxer, hard drinker, in a business that trades mostly in cash
and favors: McGill's an old-school P.I. working a city that's
gotten fancy all around him. Fancy or not, he has always managed
to get by keep a roof over the head of his wife and kids, and
still manage a little fun on the side mostly because he's never
been above taking a shady job for a quick buck. But like the
city itself, McGill is turning over a new leaf, decided to go
from crooked to slightly bent.
New York City in the twenty-first century is a city full of secrets'and
still a place that reacts when you know where to poke and which string
to pull. That's exactly the kind of thing Leonid McGill knows how to do.
As soon as The Long Fall begins, with McGill calling in old
markers and greasing NYPD palms to unearth some seemingly harmless
information for a high-paying client, he learns that even in this
cleaned-up city, his commitment to the straight and narrow is going to
be constantly tested.
And we learn that with this protagonist, this city, this time, Mosley
has tapped a rich new vein that's inspiring his best work since the
classic Devil in a Blue Dress.
The Right Mistake:
The Further Philosophical Investigations of Socrates Fortlow
Click to order via
Amazon
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Basic Civitas Books (October 6, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 046500525X
Living in South Central L.A., Socrates Fortlow is a sixty-year-old ex-convict, still strong enough to kill men with his bare hands. Now freed after serving twenty-seven years in prison, he is filled with profound guilt about his own crimes and disheartened by the chaos of the streets. Along with his gambler friend Billy Psalms, Socrates calls together local people of all races from their different social stations'lawyers, gangsters, preachers, Buddhists, businessmen'to conduct meetings of a Thinkers' Club, where all can discuss the unanswerable questions in life.
The street philosopher enjoins his friends to explore'even in the knowledge that there's nothing that they personally can do to change the ways of the world'what might be done anyway, what it would take to change themselves. Infiltrated by undercover cops, and threatened by strain from within, tensions rise as hot-blooded gangsters and respectable deacons fight over issues of personal and social responsibility. But simply by asking questions about racial authenticity, street justice, infidelity, poverty, and the possibility of mutual understanding, Socrates and his unlikely crew actually begin to make a difference.
In turns outraged and affectionate, The Right Mistake offers a profoundly literary and ultimately redemptive exploration of the possibility of moral action in a violent and fallen world.
The Tempest Tales
click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 190 pages
Publisher: Black Classic Press (March 28, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1574780433
The Tempest Tales, Walter Mosley's newest book which we [Black Classic Press] are publishing. The wise folks at Essence [magazine] selected Tempest as the Book of the Month. It should be in bookstores the first part of May [2008]. This is the third book we've done with Walter, who continues to keep his values around supporting Black independent publishing front and center. We've got a big job to do on marketing Tempest and getting the word out. This is an exciting challenge. --Paul Coates, founder Black Classic Press
About the Book
Tempest Landry, an everyman African American, is 'accidentally' killed
by a cop. Denied access to heaven because of what he considers a few
minor transgressions, Tempest refuses to go to hell. Stymied, Saint
Peter sends him back to Harlem, where a guiding angel tries to convince
him to accept Saint Peter's judgment, and even the Devil himself tries
to win over Tempest's soul. Through the street-smart Landry, Mosley
poses the provocative question: Is sin for blacks the same as it is for
whites? And who gets to decide?
Diablerie
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (December 26, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1596913975
In this
icy noir from a master of American fiction, the darkest secrets are the
ones we keep
hidden from ourselves.
Ben Dibbuk has a good job, an accomplished wife, a bright college-age daughter, and a patient young mistress. Even as he goes through the motions of everyday life, however, inside he feels nothing. The explanation for this emotional void lies in the years he spent as a blacked-out drunk before pulling his life together'years in which he knows he committed acts he doesn't remember.
Then a woman from his past turns up at a gala for his wife's new gig at a magazine called Diablerie and makes it clear that she remembers something he doesn't. Their encounter sets wheels in motion that will propel Dibbuk toward new knowledge, and perhaps the chance to feel again. With the same erotic force as Killing Johnny Fry, but grounded in a far darker vision of human nature, Diablerie is a transfixing new novel from one of our most powerful writers.
Fear of the Dark: A
Novel
Click to order via Amazon
Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (September 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 044661789X
Fearless Jones and Paris Minton, stars of the bestsellers Fearless
Jones and Fear Itself, return in a high-velocity, larger-than-life
thriller about family, betrayal, and revenge.
"I'm in trouble, Paris."
Paris Minton has heard these words before. They mean only one thing:
that his neck is on the line too. So when they are uttered by his
lowlife cousin Ulysses S. Grant, Paris keeps the door firmly closed.
With family like Ulysses-Useless to everyone except his mother-who needs
enemies?
But trouble always finds an open window, and when Useless's mother,
Three Hearts, shows up from Louisiana to look for her son, Paris has no
choice but to track down his wayward cousin.
Finding a con artist like Useless is easier said than done. But with the
aid of his ear-to-the-ground friend Fearless Jones, Paris gets a hint
that Useless may have expanded his range of enterprise to include
blackmail. Now he has disappeared, and Paris's mission is to discover
whether he is hiding from his vengeful victims-or already dead.
Traversing the complicated landscape of 1950s Los Angeles, where a wrong
look can get a black man killed, Paris and Fearless find desperate
women, secret lives, and more than one dead body along the way. Fear of
the Dark is filled with the sheer-nerve plotting and brilliant
characterizations that prompted The Nation to credit Walter Mosley for
"the finest detective oeuvre in American literature."
This Year You Write
Your Novel
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 0316065412
Pub. Date: April 2007
Format: Hardcover, 113pp
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
"With Mosley as instructor, how can your novel go wrong?"
--Library Journal
No more excuses. "Let the lawn get shaggy and the paint peel from the walls," bestselling novelist Walter Mosley advises. Anyone can write a novel now, and in this essential book of tips, practical advice, and wisdom, Walter Mosley promises that the writer-in-waiting can finish it in one year. Intended as both inspiration and instruction, the book provides the tools to turn out a first draft painlessly and then revise it into something finer. Mosley tells how to: - Create a daily writing regimen to fit any writer's needs-- and how to stick to it. - Determine the narrative voice that's right for every writer's style. - Get past those first challenging sentences and into the heart of a story.
Killing Johnny Fry:
A Sexistential Novel
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 159691226X
Pub. Date: December 2006
Format: Hardcover, 288pp
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
This bold new novel from Walter Mosley startles in both its rawness and its honest portrayal of a man on a quest for sexual redemption in midlife. When Cordell Carmel catches his longtime girlfriend with another man, the act that he witnesses seems to dissolve all the boundaries he knows. In that instant, the calm existence of this middle-aged New York City man becomes something unrecognizable: he wants revenge, but also something more. Killing Johnny Fry is the story of Cordell's dark, funny, soulful, and outrageously explicit sexual odyssey in search of a new way of life. His guide is a mysterious woman named Sisypha, who leads him deep into the erotic heart of the city.
Killing Johnny Fry marks new territory for Walter Mosley, bestselling author of Devil in a Blue Dress and many other books in different genres: sci-fi, politics, literary fiction. It will surprise, provoke, inspire, and make you blush. Above all, it is about a man questioning the rules we take for granted--and the powerful and sometimes disturbing connections that occur between people when these rules are removed.
Maximum Fantastic
Four (Graphic Novel, Hardcover)
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Marvel Comics; Maximum Ed edition (November 16, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 078511792X
ISBN-13: 978-0785117926
Ushering in momentous change in comic-book illustration and ingenuity, Jack Kirby's immense artistic contribution to Fantastic Four #1 revolutionized visual storytelling and brought the art of reality to the extraordinary lives of super-heroes. The ripple effects of that single issue continue to influence comic-book art to this day. As a tribute to Kirby's rendering of Marvel's First Family and their first adventure, Maximum Fantastic Four re-presents Fantastic Four #1 as you've never seen it before - highlighted by a super-size, digitally remastered, panel-by-panel exploration of the entire issue that captures every single detail and nuance of Kirby's groundbreaking artwork. The book also contains a substantial introduction and afterword by bestselling author and comic-book enthusiast Walter Mosley; art commentary by Kirby expert Mark Evanier; the stunning design of Paul Sahre; and a scale-sized, high-resolution reproduction of FF #1.This immaculately packaged coffee-table masterpiece is must-have for any Jack Kirby enthusiast, Fantastic Four fanatic, or sequential art fan!
Workin' on the Chain Gang: Shaking Off the Dead Hand of History
click to order via Amazon
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: University of Michigan Press (December 27, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0472031988
A passionate examination of the social and economic injustices that continue to shackle the American people
". . . bracing and provocative. . . ."
---Publishers Weekly
". . . clear-sighted . . . Mosley offers chain-breaking ideas. . . ."
---Los Angeles Times Book Review
"[A] thoroughly potent dismantling of Yanqui capitalism, the media, and
the entertainment business, and at the same time a celebration of
rebellion, truth as a tool for emancipation, and much else besides. . .
."
---Toronto Globe and Mail
"Workin' on the Chain Gang excels at expressing feelings of ennui that
transcend race. . . . beautiful language and penetrating insights into
the necessity of confronting the past."
---Washington Post
"Mosley eloquently examines what liberation from consumer capitalism
might look like. . . . readers receptive to a progressive critique of
the religion of the market will value Mosley's creative contribution."
---Booklist
Fortunate
Son
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 0316114715
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Pub. Date: April 2006
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley's novel about two boys, one ensconced in a life of privilege and the other in a life of hardship, explores the true meaning of fortune.
In spite of remarkable differences, Eric and Tommy are as close as brothers. Eric, a Nordic Adonis, is graced by a seemingly endless supply of good fortune. Tommy is a lame black boy, cursed with health problems, yet he remains optimistic and strong.
After tragedy rips their makeshift family apart, the lives of these boys diverge astonishingly: Eric, the golden youth, is given everything but trusts nothing; Tommy, motherless and impoverished, has nothing, but feels lucky every day of his life. In a riveting story of modern-day resilience and redemption, the two confront separate challenges, and when circumstances reunite them years later, they draw on their extraordinary natures to confront a common enemy and, ultimately, save their lives.
Life
out of Context
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 1560258462
Format: Paperback, 103pp
Pub. Date: January 2006
Publisher: Avalon Publishing Group
"Life Out of Context begins as a brooding examination of Mosley's own sense of cultural dislocation as an African-American writer. But die to a series of serendipitous events - the screening of a documentary about Africa, an inspiring encounter with Harry Belafonte and Hugh Masekela - Mosley has a set of epiphanies that turns the focus away from him. What can we do to fight injustice, poverty, exploitation, and racism? What is globalization doing to us?" Through these late-night meditations, Mosley attempts to transcend his earlier feelings of living a "life out of context" and seeks instead to find a political context. He ends with a call to arms, proposing that African-Americans have to break their historic ties with the Democratic Party and form a party of their own. Mosley writes, "Economic globalism has pressed many lives out of context. It's about time we push back."
The Wave
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 0446533637
Format: Hardcover, 224pp
Pub. Date: January 2006
Publisher: Warner Books, Incorporated
The New York Times bestselling author returns to science fiction with an eerie, transcendent novel of the near future.
Errol's father has been dead for several years. Yet lately Errol has been awakened in the middle of the night by a caller claiming to be his father. Is it a prank, or a message from the grave? When he hears the unmistakable sound of a handset being put down on a table, he decides to investigate.
Curious and not a little unnerved, Errol sneaks into the graveyard where his father is buried. What he finds there changes his life forever. Caught up in a war between a secret government security agency and an alien presence infecting our world, touched by the Wave, he knows that nothing will ever be the same again.
ISBN: 0316110353
Format: Hardcover, 240pp
Pub. Date: May 2005
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Age Range: 12
Number 47, a fourteen-year-old slave boy growing up under the watchful eye of a brutal master in 1832, meets the mysterious Tall John, who introduces him to a magical science and also teaches him the meaning of freedom.
The story you are about to read concerns certain events that occurred in the early days of my life. It all happened over a hundred and seventy years ago. For many of you it might sound like a tall tale because I am no older today than I was back in the year 1832. But this is no whopper I'm telling; it is a story about my boyhood as a slave and my fated encounter with the amazing Tall John from beyond Africa, who could read dreams, fly between galaxies, and make friends with any animal no matter how wild.
In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Walter Mosley weaves
historical and speculative fiction into a powerful narrative about the nature of
freedom. 47 is a young slave boy living under the watchful eye of a brutal slave
master. His life seems doomed until he meets a mysterious runaway slave, Tall
John. 47 soon finds himself swept up in an otherworldly battle and a personal
struggle for his own liberation.
Deeply compelling, 47 is reminiscent of the literary masterworks of Nancy
Farmer, Philip Pullman, and Octavia Butler.
Cinnamon Kiss
Click to order via
Amazon
ISBN: 0786278552
Format: Hardcover, 444pp
Pub. Date: September
2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Edition Description: Large Print Edition
New York Times bestseller Walter Mosley's sizzling new novel pits Easy Rawlins against his greatest challenge ever--a terrifying murder during the Summer of Love.
It is the Summer of Love as CINNAMON KISS opens, and Easy Rawlins is contemplating robbing an armored car. It's farther outside the law than Easy has ever traveled--but his daughter, Feather, needs a medical treatment that costs far more than Easy can earn or borrow in time. And his friend Mouse tells him it's a cinch.
Then another friend, Saul Lynx, offers a job that might solve Easy's problem without jail time. He has to track the disappearance of an eccentric prominent attorney. His assistant of sorts, the beautiful "Cinnamon" Cargill, is gone as well. Easy can tell there is much more than he is being told--Robert Lee, his new employer, is as suspect as the man who disappeared. But his need overcomes all concerns, and he plunges into unfamiliar territory, from the newfound hippie enclaves to a vicious plot that stretches back to the battlefields of Europe.
Little
Scarlet: An Easy Rawlins Mystery
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 0316073032
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Pub. Date: July 2004
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Easy Rawlins returns to solve a mystery set amid the flames of the hottest summer L.A. has ever seen.
Just after devastating riots tear through Los Angeles in 1965 - when anger is high and fear still smolders everywhere - the police turn up at Easy Rawlins's doorstep. He expects the worst, as usual. But they've come to ask for his help.
A man was wrenched from his car by a mob at the riots' peak and escaped into a nearby apartment building. Soon afterward, a redheaded woman known as Little Scarlet was found dead in that building - and the fleeing man is the obvious suspect. But the man has vanished.
The police fear that their presence in certain neighborhoods could spark a new inferno, so they ask Easy Rawlins to see what he can discover. The vanished man is the key, but he is only the beginning. Easy enlists the help of his longtime friend Mouse to break through the shroud. And what Easy finds is a killer whose rage, like that which burned in the city for weeks, is intrinsically woven around deep-set passions - feelings echoed within Easy himself.
Read about the books from Mosley's Easy Rawling's Series
Mosley's lean and musical vernacular captures the heat and the rhythm
of Los Angeles' heart, where danger is the common currency of everyday life.
Little Scarlet is further proof that Mosley is "a master of mystery"
--New York Times Book Review.
The Man in My
Basement: A Novel
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 0316570826
Format: Hardcover, 256pp
Pub. Date: January 2004
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
The man at Charles Blakey's door has a proposition almost too strange for words. He wants to spend the summer in Charles's basement, and Charles cannot even begin to guess why.
The beautiful house has been in the Blakey family for generations, but Charles has just lost his job and is behind on his mortgage payments. The money would be welcome.
But Charles Blakey is black and Anniston Bennet is white, and it is clear that the stranger wants more than a basement view. There is something deeper and darker about his request, and Charles does not need any more trouble. But financial necessity leaves him no choice.
Once Anniston Bennet is installed in his basement, Charles is cast into a role
he never dreamed of. Anniston has some very particular requests for his
landlord, and try as he might, Charles cannot avoid being lured into Bennet's
strange world. At first he resists, but soon he is tempted - tempted by the
opportunity to understand the secret ways of white folks. Tempted to understand
a set of codes that has always eluded him. Charles's summer with a man in his
basement turns into an exploration of inconceivable worlds of power and
manipulation, and unimagined realms of humanity.
In this successful and intriguing departure from his usual work, Mr. Mosley
creates a substantial subplot about heritage and history. ' In the end this
audacious novel is about facing up to such brutal realities. But it is also
about seeking refuge. 'Janet Maslin The New York Times
What
Next: A Memoir Toward World Peace
Click to order via
Amazon
Format:
Paperback, 124pp.
ISBN: 1574780204
Publisher: Black Classic Press
Pub. Date: February 2003
A message from the publisher about What Next
In What Next, Walter Mosley -- New York Times bestselling author -- has crafted a deeply personal and political proposal, offering a commonsense approach to the challenge of finding world peace in a post-9/11 world. Mosley recalls his father's story about not feeling like an American until German soldiers shot at him during World War II. Now the younger Mosley explores what the terrorist attacks meant to him, and challenges African Americans to use their unique position to help create a new kind of peace between the U.S. and the rest of the world. What Next examines this and other questions in a powerful polemic and call to action for African Americans and freedom-loving people everywhere.
Six
Easy Pieces
Click to order via Amazon
Format:
Hardcover, 208pp.
ISBN: 0743442520
Publisher: Atria Books
Pub. Date: January 2003
For years, readers have been enthralled by the adventures of Easy Rawlins, the unforgettable hero created by bestselling and award-winning writer Walter Mosley. In Six Easy Pieces Mosley presents a collection of six NEW Easy Rawlins short stories. . .sure to please fans that have long awaited his return. Read about the books from Mosley's Easy Rawling's Series
Futureland: Nine
Stories of an Imminent World
Click to order via Amazon
Format:
Hardcover, 356pp.
ISBN: 0446529540
Publisher: Warner Books, Incorporated
Pub. Date: November 2001
"Life in America a generation from now isn't much different from today: The drugs are better, the daily grind is worse. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened to a chasm. You can store the world's legal knowledge on a chip in your little finger, while the Supreme Court has decreed that constitutional rights don't apply to any individual who challenges the system. Justice is swiftly delivered by automated courts, so the prison industry is booming. And while the media declare racism is dead, word on the street is that even in a colorless society, it's a crime to be black." "But the world still turns and folks still have to get by with the hands they're dealt, folks such as:" "Ptolomy "Popo" Bent: This gentle backwoods child has a genius I.Q. - and a soul so pure that officials want him locked up forever." "Folio Johnson: A hardboiled, cyber-augmented private eye who can see beneath the dark poetry of the metropolis, he will need an even greater edge than that to find out who's systematically murdering rich, young Nazis." Fera Jones: She's the boxing Queen of the Ring who must still fight all comers to save her dad, preserve her identity, and protect the fans who believe in her.
Fearless Jones
Click to order via Amazon
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
ISBN: 0316592382
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Pub. Date: June 2001
Edition: 1 ED
From the Book Jacket
"Paris Minton is minding his own business - a small used-book store
of which he is the proud proprietor - when a beautiful woman named Elana
Love walks in and asks a few questions. Within the next twenty-four hours,
Paris has been beaten up, made love to, shot at, and robbed, and his
bookstore has been burned to the ground. He's in so much trouble he has no
choice but to get his friend Fearless Jones out of jail to help."
"Fearless Jones is an army veteran, a man who is proud of his
accomplishments during World War II and refuses to step into the
background now that the war is over. Violence dogs Fearless's every step,
and Paris has tried to keep his distance. But there's no friend like the
one you need." "The two set out to find the elusive Elana Love,
and every step leads them deeper into a bewildering vortex of money and
betrayal. Their questions bring out a ruthless and racist cop, a gang of
vicious excons, and an elderly Jewish woman who is as determined to help
the two friends as others are to harm them. These two black men in 1950s
Los Angeles have few rights, little money, and no recourse under attack.
But they have their friends, their wits, and their knowledge of the way
the world really works to help them prevail."
Walkin'
the Dog
Click to order via Amazon
Format: Book, 1st ed., 272pp.
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Pub. Date: October 1999
Edition Desc: 1 ED Format: Pop Up Book, 1st ed., 272pp.
"Socrates Fortlow, an ex-convict forced to define his own morality in a lawless world, confronts wrongs that most people would rather ignore and comes face-to-face with the most dangerous emotion: hope. It has been nine years since his release from prison, and he still makes his home in a two-room shack in a Watts alley. But he has a girlfriend now, a steady job, and he is even caring for a pet, the two-legged dog he calls Killer. These responsibilities make finding the right path even harder - especially when the police make Socrates their first suspect in every crime within six blocks."
"In each chapter of Walkin' the Dog, Socrates challenges a different conundrum of modern life. In "Blue Lightning," he is offered a better-paying job but has to consider whether the extra pay is worth the freedom he would have to give up. In "Promise," he keeps a vow made long ago to a dying friend, and learns that a promise to one person can mean damage to another. In "Mookie Kid," he gets a telephone and learns that the price of being able to reach others is that others can contact him - whether he wants to be reached or not."-- Book jacket.
"The stories are delightful, nothing overly powerful just pleasant little journeys. At first glance one could think that a book of this nature could be easily written but I think not. There is an art to what Mosley does with a story, without being preachy he delivers subtle little messages through the thoughts of Socrates and his friends. It's an easy fast read, I enjoyed it." -- Carey, comments originally posted on AALBC discussion board (11/18/99)
Gone Fishin'
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 244 pages
Publisher: Black Classic Pr; 1st ed edition (February 1997)
Language: English
IISBN-10: 1574780255
Read Chapter One from Gone Fishin'
The setting: Houston, 1939. Easy and Mouse are young men just setting out in life. Easy has yet to develop his skill for unraveling the secrets of others, and Mouse has yet to kill his first man. All will soon change. Easy and Mouse come of age in Gone Fishin' as they are compelled to examine their friendship and other relationships that have shaped their lives. Both young men take a closer look at their love and memories of their mothers and are forced to deal with the fathers in their lives - Easy yearning for the one he hardly knew, Mouse vengeful over the one he was left. Out of these memories and interactions, each must somehow forge his own sense of manhood.
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned: The Socrates Fortlow
Stories
Click to order via Amazon
Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company; 1st ed edition (November 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393045390
Read a sample chapter from this book.
Three decades ago, the young Socrates had, in a burst of drunken rage, murdered a man and a woman with his huge "rock-breaking hands." Twenty-seven years of hard time in an Indiana prison followed. Now Socrates lives in a cramped two-room apartment in an abandoned building in Watts, scavenging bottles and delivering groceries for a supermarket. In each of the linked stories that comprise this richly brooding work, Socrates, like his namesake, explores philosophical questions of morality in a world beset with crime, poverty, and racism. He is an unforgettable presence and his perceptions cast a glow of somber lyricism upon an often harsh world.
Author Walter Mosley on Writing Mystery Novels, Political Revelation, Racism and Pushing Obama (from Democracy.org, February2012)
Related Links
Read about the books from Mosley's Easy Rawling's Series
Video - Howard Zinn & Walter Mosley - Excerpt from
Conversation, July 21st 2007 at the Harlem Book Fair (11:22 mins)
http://authors.aalbc.com/howard_zinn.htm
Walter Mosley Website
www.waltermosley.com/