Gray Dawn - (Easy Rawlins) by Walter Mosley (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this instant bestselling thrilling mystery from Walter Mosley, Detective Easy Rawlins has settled into the happy rhythm of his new life when a dark siren from his past returns and threatens to destroy the peace he's fought for.

The name Easy Rawlins stirs excitement in the hearts of readers and fear in the hearts of his foes. His success has bought him a thriving detective agency, with its first female detective; a remote home, shared with children and pets and lovers, high atop the hills overlooking gritty Los Angeles; and more trouble, more problems, and more threats to those he loves. In other words, he's still beset on all sides.

Rising in the city's criminal underground is a woman cannier than any card shark or kingpin, a woman feared by all, threatening the businesses of all, whom Easy must quickly locate and neutralize. She goes by the name Lutisha, but Easy will recognize her as the woman who set his entire adult life into motion. Nineteen-seventies Los Angeles is a transient city of delicate, violent balances, and Lutisha has upended that. She also has a secret that will upend Easy's own life, painfully close to home.

"Master of craft and narrative" --National Book Foundation

Review Quotes

"[Mosley's] stirring prose and vivid evocation of 1970s L.A. carry the day, and Easy himself is as charming as ever. Series fans will find plenty to enjoy."--Publishers Weekly

"For crime readers, a new Easy Rawlins novel is one of the big events of late summer / early fall. In the new installment, Easy is at the head of his own detective agency and thriving in 1970s LA. Mosley has more than earned his reputation as the ultimate craftsman - his language is precise, evocative, and poetic, and his stories challenge and satisfy in equal measure."--CrimeReads

"Gray Dawn," the 17th book starring the genre-changing detective, finds him tasked with finding a domestic worker named Lutisha James, only to find a murder, and then another, instead. Los Angeles in the 1970s serves as the book's evocative backdrop."--Washington Post

"Mosley's moving author's note implores readers to see this work as a reminder of the ongoing toxicity of segregation, lynchings, and generations of casual hatred. In Mosley's masterful hands, this is a portal to Los Angeles streets and their vastly different worlds, communities born of disadvantage, and mysteries that highlight universal truths. --Booklist, Starred Review

"One of the many pleasures of Mr. Mosley's series is seeing how Easy's tolerance and understanding mature--even as his personal code of honor remains as solid as ever."--Wall Street Journal

"The redoubtable, unstoppable Easy Rawlins has more on his plate than usual in the 17th novel of this epoch-spanning--and epoch-making--series of detective fiction...By now, it's tempting to take Mosley's inimitable blend of taut lyricism and evocative landscapes for granted. Don't."--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

WALTER MOSLEY is one of America's most celebrated writers. He was given the 2020 National Book Award's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and honored with the Anisfield-Wolf Award, a Grammy, a PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award, the Robert Kirsch Award, numerous Edgars, and several NAACP Image Awards. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages. He has published fiction and nonfiction in The New Yorker, Playboy, and The Nation. As an executive producer, he adapted his novel The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey for AppleTV+. He co-wrote the adaptation of his novel The Man in My Basement to stream on Hulu, and he served as a writer and executive producer for FX's Snowfall. He divides his time between Brooklyn and Santa Monica.