Series
Publication
Grand Central Publishing (2003), 360 pages
Original publication date
2002
Collections
Genres
Subjects
Awards
Hammett Prize (Nominee — 2002)
Description
Fiction. African American Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. Young Brawly Brown has traded in his family for The Clan of the First Men, a group rejecting white leadership and laws. Brown's mom asks Easy to make sure her baby's okay, and Easy promises to find him. His first day on the case, Easy comes face-to-face with a corpse, and before he knows it he is a murder suspect and in the middle of a police raid. Brawly Brown is clearly the kind of trouble most folks try to avoid. It takes everything Easy has just to stay alive as he explores a world filled with betrayals and predators like he never imagined.
User reviews
LibraryThing member gwendolyndawson
I found this novel to be entirely forgettable. I may not be a good source of an opinion, however, because I am unfamiliar with this genre, and perhaps I do not like the genre.
LibraryThing member frank_oconnor
Somewhat unmemorable, as I barely remember any of it. It seemed good enough at the time though, if a little uneven in tone, lurching between politcial and domestic naratives without ever really fusing the two.
LibraryThing member jrtanworth
Easy Rawlins is back, this time without without the help of his dangerous friend Mouse. Great sixties atmosphere, an intricate but believable plot, a surprising but satisfactory resolution of Easy's debt of friendship. I found this one of the best mysteries I've read in a while. I'm surprised the
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ratings aren't higher. Show Less
LibraryThing member weird_O
This is the first book by Mosley that I've read, but it won't be the last. It's an Easy Rawlings novel, exactly in the middle of the series (according to the WhackiWiki), with six books before it and six after. In this one, it's 1964, and Rawlings is working as the maintenance supervisor of the
The story is this: Rawlings is asked by a friend to locate Brawly Brown, the son of that friend's girlfriend. Brawly allegedly hates his mother. He lived with his father, then abruptly left his father and moved in with his mother's cousin, Isolda. Busted for shoplifting a radio, he's sent to a juvenile home. Released, Brawly goes back to his father. But then, Brawly's mother says, he and his father had a violent fight, and he's on his own, and possibly running with a bad crowd.
Rawlings's searching takes him first to the home of Brawly's aunt, which is the scene of a recent, bloody murder. No Isolda there. As police arrive at the front door, he escapes out the back. Shortly thereafter, he attends a meeting of an urban activist group—Brawly may be a member—that's raided by police. Again he escapes, but in doing so, meets the group's leadership (though not Brawly). Not long afterwards, he's approached at his home by a seedy-looking detective who has photos of him taken at the meeting, in the moments before the raid. The detective knows a great deal about Rawlings, and recruits him to spy on the group for the police. While he declines the offer, he does keep the detective's phone number. It comes in handy before long.
The search progresses, with Rawlings meeting more and more people, few of whom take him at his word that he's just looking for the son of a friend, with the goal of keeping the kid out of trouble.
And so it goes, with another murder, additional mayhem, and, of course, obligatory surprises. A fun read.
I picked this book for the challenge simply because I had it. At a very recent library book sale (Buy a bag of books for $5!), I put this book in my bag because I'd heard of Mosley, but had never read anything by him. Now I have. And I'll keep an eye for Mosley books in the future.
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Sojourner Truth Middle School, raising two adopted children, sharing his life with an airline stewardess, and still mourning the death of his life-long friend Raymond "Mouse" Alexander in the previous year. The story is this: Rawlings is asked by a friend to locate Brawly Brown, the son of that friend's girlfriend. Brawly allegedly hates his mother. He lived with his father, then abruptly left his father and moved in with his mother's cousin, Isolda. Busted for shoplifting a radio, he's sent to a juvenile home. Released, Brawly goes back to his father. But then, Brawly's mother says, he and his father had a violent fight, and he's on his own, and possibly running with a bad crowd.
Rawlings's searching takes him first to the home of Brawly's aunt, which is the scene of a recent, bloody murder. No Isolda there. As police arrive at the front door, he escapes out the back. Shortly thereafter, he attends a meeting of an urban activist group—Brawly may be a member—that's raided by police. Again he escapes, but in doing so, meets the group's leadership (though not Brawly). Not long afterwards, he's approached at his home by a seedy-looking detective who has photos of him taken at the meeting, in the moments before the raid. The detective knows a great deal about Rawlings, and recruits him to spy on the group for the police. While he declines the offer, he does keep the detective's phone number. It comes in handy before long.
The search progresses, with Rawlings meeting more and more people, few of whom take him at his word that he's just looking for the son of a friend, with the goal of keeping the kid out of trouble.
And so it goes, with another murder, additional mayhem, and, of course, obligatory surprises. A fun read.
I picked this book for the challenge simply because I had it. At a very recent library book sale (Buy a bag of books for $5!), I put this book in my bag because I'd heard of Mosley, but had never read anything by him. Now I have. And I'll keep an eye for Mosley books in the future.
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LibraryThing member laytonwoman3rd
Standard Easy fare...our Mr. Rawlins is called upon by old friends to do what parents and police cannot or will not do---pull young Brawly Brown's nuts out of the fire before he's completely toast. How he goes about it is unconventional, but it works. Along the way, Easy also gains some insight
August 2015
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into dealing with his own young son's singular way of maturing, and it's all to the good. I listened to this one on audio, and I have to say the various characterizations were quite good...but the little kids and women didn't always work just right. I think the reader tried just a little too hard. I did appreciate that this audio recording cued the end of the last track on each disc (I'm listening in the car) with gentle, appropriate music. I really hate having the last track end and getting 2 minutes into the FIRST track again before I realize I should have swapped out the disc.August 2015
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LibraryThing member johnwbeha
I always enjoy Walter Mosley's books and this is no exception, but it didn't grab me like some of the others. Easy Rawlins is a good character, but I found that there were too many relatively undifferentiated minor characters, which led to slightly muddled storytelling. It did draw a unsettling
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picture of black life in LA in the sixties and the wide divide between blacks and whites. There are a lot more Mosley's on my reasons piles! Show Less
LibraryThing member RonWelton
Easy Rawlins is deeply depressed and filled with guilt because he believes he brought about the death of his friend, Mouse. A phone call from his friend, John, who asks him for his help, snaps him out of the depression. John and his wife, Alva, ask him to find and bring home her son, Brawly
Easy for the first time has a woman in his life whom he can share the truths of his life. Bonnie Shay loves Easy and she knows him: "What you should be doing is finding yourself, not this boy."
Easy manages to help his friend John with the help of Mouse who speaks to him in his dreams.
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Brown.Easy for the first time has a woman in his life whom he can share the truths of his life. Bonnie Shay loves Easy and she knows him: "What you should be doing is finding yourself, not this boy."
Easy manages to help his friend John with the help of Mouse who speaks to him in his dreams.
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LibraryThing member JBreedlove
The ending raise it to a 4star. Easy delves into a freinds sons troubled life, bringing him back to the light. A look at pre-riot LA and a serious black man's lot in the early 1960's. A little preachy in places but Mosely has a point to get a cross. Black men can be stand up just as they can be low
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down, like everyone else. Show Less
LibraryThing member saroz
Walter Mosley's greatest skill continues to be his observations of human beings: how they speak, what they look like, how they interact. The Easy Rawlins books are full of interactions where characters circle each other, size each other up, and what they don't say is just as important as what they
That doesn't quite happen with Brawly Brown. It's one of the more memorable ones, I think because the plot foregrounds the socio-political aspect - again, something Mosley depicts really well, but usually without quite so big a scope. Here, the generational divide between Easy and the young, more politically motivated Black people he has to investigate drives a lot of the tension, and anyone with a mild sense of mid-century history can kind of see where this is heading. That sense of history-in-the-making benefits the book, because once again Mosley introduces slightly too many characters to keep in your head (albeit one or two, like Sam Houston, being standouts). It's almost better to let it wash over you and notice the almost relentless march toward a famous tipping point instead.
On a sidenote, it's also pleasant to see Easy Rawlins, in middle age, having curbed his slightly less savory personal aspects without sacrificing his hard-boiled weariness. It would be easier for me to put this book in the hands of a new reader than the first two or three in the series, where Easy is, himself, a somewhat more seedy individual. I don't know about the continued reliance on memories of Mouse, though. I hope Mosley is going somewhere with that - there are hints that he is - because he can't keep the trick he employs in this book up for very long before it will become stale.
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do. (In general, Mosley's use of language is very powerful without ever seeming anything but conversational - he has a gift in that arena.) There's a sort of easy (forgive me) flow to the books that makes them very, very readable, and Bad Boy Brawly Brown is no exception. However, they do tend to blend into each other a bit, and the "mysteries" are never the most interesting part. The solutions are sometimes completely anti-climactic, in fact.That doesn't quite happen with Brawly Brown. It's one of the more memorable ones, I think because the plot foregrounds the socio-political aspect - again, something Mosley depicts really well, but usually without quite so big a scope. Here, the generational divide between Easy and the young, more politically motivated Black people he has to investigate drives a lot of the tension, and anyone with a mild sense of mid-century history can kind of see where this is heading. That sense of history-in-the-making benefits the book, because once again Mosley introduces slightly too many characters to keep in your head (albeit one or two, like Sam Houston, being standouts). It's almost better to let it wash over you and notice the almost relentless march toward a famous tipping point instead.
On a sidenote, it's also pleasant to see Easy Rawlins, in middle age, having curbed his slightly less savory personal aspects without sacrificing his hard-boiled weariness. It would be easier for me to put this book in the hands of a new reader than the first two or three in the series, where Easy is, himself, a somewhat more seedy individual. I don't know about the continued reliance on memories of Mouse, though. I hope Mosley is going somewhere with that - there are hints that he is - because he can't keep the trick he employs in this book up for very long before it will become stale.
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Language
Original language
English
ISBN
0446612316 / 9780446612319
Physical description
360 p.; 4.25 inches
Pages
360