I've read all the Rawlins books except Little Yellow Dog and
Gone Fishin'
(both of which I have, waiting to read them). Mosley is a
great writer,
and I don't think it is necessarily as a hardboiled writer
alone. These
are violent books, but the the language of Easy is more
lyrical, the
surrounding players vibrant (Mouse is a classic sidekick,
great character)
and well developed, the setting perfectly realized. This 1st
one (well,
the first one we saw, since Gone Fishin was published just
last year) was a
great introduction to this world. The plot seems to meander,
but that's
okay. Great writing is not all about plot. The best writers
in the crime
field, to me, are more into character development than the
basic whodunit.
I liked Devil, but like other books in the series more. But
in a series, I
like to start at the beginning, and this was a really great
beginning. I
guess opinions will differ on the greatest hardboiled writer
of the decade,
and since I've got my own fave, there's no competition, but
Mosley is a top
ten for me.
Anthony Smith
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