WALTER MOSLEY

Bestselling author Walter Mosley has proven himself a master of narrative tension, both with his extraordinary fiction and gripping writing for television. The Awkward Black Man collects seventeen of Mosley's most accomplished short stories to showcase the full range of his remarkable talent.Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories--heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved, and, on the whole, odd. He overturns the stereotypes that corral black male characters and paints a subtle, powerful portrait of each of these unique individuals. In "The Good News Is," a man's insecurity about his weight gives way to a serious illness and the intense loneliness that accompanies it. Deeply vulnerable, he allows himself to be taken advantage of in return for a little human comfort in a raw display of true need. "Pet Fly," previously published in the New Yorker, follows a man working as a mailroom clerk for a big company--a solitary job for which he is overqualified--and the unforeseen repercussions he endures when he attempts to forge a connection beyond the one he has with the fly buzzing around his apartment. And "Almost Alyce" chronicles failed loves, family loss, alcoholism, and a Zen approach to the art of begging that proves surprisingly effective.Touching and contemplative, each of these unexpected stories offers the best of one of our most gifted writers.

Winner of the RBA Prize for Crime Writing Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD's finest investigators until, dispatched to arrest a well-heeled car thief, he is framed for assault, a charge that lands him in the notorious Rikers Island prison.A decade later, King is a private detective, running his agency with the help of his teenage daughter, Aja-Denise. When he receives a card in the mail from the woman who admits she was paid by someone in the NYPD to frame him all those years ago, King realises that he has no choice but to take his own case: figuring out who on the force wanted him disposed of - and why.At the same time, King must investigate the case of black radical journalist Leonard Compton, aka A Free Man, accused of killing two on-duty police officers who had been abusing their badges to traffic drugs and women into the city's poorest neighbourhoods.In pursuit of justice, our hero must beat dirty cops and even dirtier bankers. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: Compton's, and King's own.

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year: bestselling author Walter Mosley "is back with a whole new character to love...As gorgeous a novel as anything he's ever written" (Washington Post). Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD's finest investigators until he was framed for sexual assault by unknown enemies within the force. A decade has passed since his release from Rikers, and he now runs a private detective agency with the help of his teenage daughter. Physically and emotionally broken by the brutality he suffered while behind bars, King leads a solitary life, his work and his daughter the only lights. When he receives a letter from his accuser confessing that she was paid to frame him years ago, King decides to find out who wanted him gone and why. On a quest for the justice he was denied, King agrees to help a radical black journalist accused of killing two on-duty police officers. Their cases intertwine across the years and expose a pattern of corruption and brutality wielded against the black men, women, and children whose lives the law destroyed. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: King's client's and his own. "A wild ride that delivers hard-boiled satisfaction while toying with our prejudices and preconceptions." --Steph Cha, Los Angeles Times

A convention-defying novel by bestselling writer Walter Mosley, John Woman recounts the transformation of an unassuming boy named Cornelius Jones into John Woman, an unconventional history professor-while the legacy of a hideous crime lurks in the shadows.At twelve years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father's job at a silent film theater in New York's East Village. Five years later, as Herman lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself-as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread Herman's teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past.Engaging with some of the most provocative ideas of recent intellectual history, John Woman is a compulsively readable, deliciously unexpected novel about the way we tell stories, and whether the stories we tell have the power to change the world.

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year: bestselling author Walter Mosley "is back with a whole new character to love...As gorgeous a novel as anything he's ever written" (Washington Post). Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD's finest investigators until he was framed for sexual assault by unknown enemies within the force. A decade has passed since his release from Rikers, and he now runs a private detective agency with the help of his teenage daughter. Physically and emotionally broken by the brutality he suffered while behind bars, King leads a solitary life, his work and his daughter the only lights. When he receives a letter from his accuser confessing that she was paid to frame him years ago, King decides to find out who wanted him gone and why. On a quest for the justice he was denied, King agrees to help a radical black journalist accused of killing two on-duty police officers. Their cases intertwine across the years and expose a pattern of corruption and brutality wielded against the black men, women, and children whose lives the law destroyed. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: King's client's and his own. "A wild ride that delivers hard-boiled satisfaction while toying with our prejudices and preconceptions." --Steph Cha, Los Angeles Times

Walter Mosley - 'simply the best crime writer around today' Guardian - brings back his iconic hero, Easy Rawlins, in a frenetic adventure through the shady streets of LA.

In this latest installment of the Easy Rawlins series from beloved and bestselling author Walter Mosley, the L.A. private eye has his hands full with the investigation of a racially charged murder. Easy Rawlins has started a new detective agency with two trusted partners and has a diamond ring in his pocket for his longtime girlfriend Bonnie Shay. Finally, Easy's life seems to be heading towards something that looks like normalcy, but, inevitably, a case gets in the way. Easy's friend Mouse calls in a favor--he wants Easy to meet with Rufus Tyler, an aging convict whom everyone calls Charcoal Joe. Joe's friend's son, Seymour, has been charged with the murder of two white men. Joe is convinced the young man is innocent and wants Easy to prove it no matter what the cost. But seeing as how Seymour was found standing over the dead bodies, and considering the racially charged nature of the crime, that will surely prove to be a tall order.

Walter Mosley's Leonid McGill series is the best-kept secret in crime fiction: an explosive new McGill from Walter Mosley, creator of the internationally bestselling Easy Rawlins series.

P.I. Leonid McGill isn't usually one to refuse a case. But when Hiram Stent, a man down on his luck, begs him to find a cousin who is about to inherit millions of dollars, he senses something fishy. His instincts prove right: The night after he turns Hiram away, Hiram is found dead and Leonid's office is broken into. Feeling partly responsible for this bizarre turn of events, Leonid is forced to open an investigation that will pull him into the lurid history of an old-money New York family. Leonid's personal life is no less troubling. As his wife recovers in an uptown sanatorium from a suicide attempt, his mistress's conscience kicks in. To further complicate matters, the stunning Marella Herzog, as irresistible as she is dangerous, walks into his life--the perfect wrong woman at just the right time.

The Silver Box is the most destructive and powerful entity in the universe. lts former master, a member of an alien race known as the Laz, is desperate to control it once more, and the Box itself endeavors to be restored to its former master. Two people must join together to protect the human race from destruction at the hands of the Laz. For the Silver Box will stop at nothing to prevent its former master from returning to being, even if it means destroying the Earth itself. From life's meaning to the nature of good and evil, Mosley takes readers on a speculative journey beyond reality in Inside a Silver Box.

Easy Rawlins is back - and this time it's personal . . .

In the sixties era of black nationalism, political abductions, and epidemic police corruption, Easy's latest case will pull him--unremittingly and inevitably--into the darkest underbelly of Los Angeles. Rosemary Goldsmith, the daughter of a weapons manufacturer, has been kidnapped by a black revolutionary cell called Scorched Earth. Their leader, Uhuru Nolic , is holding her for ransom and if he doesn't receive the money, weapons, and apology he demands, "Rose Gold" will die--horribly and publicly. So the authorities turn to Easy Rawlins, the one man who can cross the necessary lines to resolve this dangerous standoff and find Rose Gold before it's too late.

EASY RAWLINS IS BACK. The iconic detective who leapt to fame in DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS returns.

In Little Green, Walter Mosley's acclaimed detective Easy Rawlins returns from the brink of death to investigate the dark side of that haven for Los Angeles hippies, the Sunset Strip. He's soon back in top form, cruising the gloriously psychedelic mean streets of L.A. with his murderous sidekick, Mouse. They've been hired to look for a young black man, Evander "Little Green" Noon, who disappeared during an acid trip. Fueled by an elixir called Gator's Blood, Easy experiences a physical, spiritual, andemotional resurrection, but peace and love soon give way to murder and mayhem.

Walter Mosley's talent knows no bounds. Merge and Disciple are but two of six fragments in the Crosstown to Oblivion short novels in which Mosley entertainingly explores life's cosmic questions. From life's meaning to the nature of good and evil, these tales take us on speculative journeys beyond the reality we have come to know. In each tale someone in our world today is given insight into these long pondered mysteries. But how would the world really receive the answers? MergeRaleigh Redman loved Nicci Charbon until she left him heartbroken. Then he hit the lotto for twenty-four million dollars, quit his minimum wage job and set his sights on one goal: reading the entire collection of lectures in the Popular Educator Library, the only thing his father left behind after he died. As Raleigh is trudging through the eighth volume, he notices something in his apartment that at first seems ordinary but quickly reveals itself to be from a world very different from our own. This entity shows Raleigh joy beyond the comforts of twenty-four million dollars....and merges our world with those that live beyond.DiscipleHogarth "Trent" Tryman is a forty-two-year-old man working a dead-end data entry job. Though he lives alone and has no real friends besides his mother, he's grown quite content in his quiet life, burning away time with television, the internet, and video games. That all changes the night he receives a bizarre instant message on his computer from a man who calls himself Bron. At first he thinks it's a joke, but in just a matter of days Hogarth Tryman goes from a data-entry clerk to the head of a corporation. His fate is now in very powerful hands as he realizes he has become a pawn in a much larger game with unimaginable stakes--a battle that threatens the prime life force on Earth.

An electric new novel starring PI Leonid McGill from the inimitable Walter Mosley, creator of the Easy Rawlins series.

In this gritty, fast-paced crime novel, a resilient ex-con seeks redemption and uncovers a web of high-stakes secrets as Detective Leonid McGill tries to prove her innocence. Zella Grisham never denied shooting her boyfriend. That's not why she did eight years of hard time on a sixteen-year sentence. It's that the shooting inadvertently led to charges of grand theft. Talk about bad luck. Leonid McGill has reasons to believe she's innocent. But reopening the case is only serving to unsettle McGill's private life even further--and expose a family secret that's like a kick to the gut. As the case unfolds, as the truth of what happened eight years ago becomes more damning and more complex than anyone dreamed, McGill and Zella realize that everyone is guilty of something, and that sometimes the sins of the past can be too damaging to ever forget. Or ever forgive.

Leonid McGill is back, in the most enthralling and ambitious instalment of Mosley's latest NEW YORK TIMES bestselling series.

African-American noir is at its finest in this gripping crime novel from Walter Mosley's New York Times bestselling series, in which a strange young woman hires Detective Leonid McGill to protect her from her allegedly murderous husband. 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). Lately, Leonid McGill is getting job offers only from the criminals he's worked so hard to leave behind. Meanwhile, his personal life is growing more complicated, with his stepson mysteriously dropping out of school, a friend getting diagnosed with cancer, and his unfaithful wife taking another new lover. 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 who has 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 sorting out the woman's crooked tale might bring him straight to death's door.

A major literary event-nothing short of a tour de force (New York Times) by the acclaimed and beloved author. Marooned in an apartment that overflows with mementos from the past, 91-year-old Ptolemy Grey is all but forgotten by his family and the world. But when an unexpected opportunity arrives, everything changes for Ptolemy in ways as shocking and unanticipated as they are poignant and profound.