Blonde Faith

two mysteries for the price of one. easy comes home to find that his friend, christmas black, has left his daughter, easter, in the care of easy. some deduction reveals that christmas would not have left his daughter and disappeared were something not right, something involving murder. easy had recently left the house of mouse, his murderous friend, who also disappeared following another disappearance, that of pericles tarr, harried father of twelve children, suspected murdered by mouse, mouse hunted by police who want him dead. meanwhile, the love of easy’s life, bonnie, is getting married, and easy can’t let her go from his thoughts, holding on to the belief he can get her back.chasing down leads to the whereabouts of two deadly friends brings easy in contact with the usual tough guys and the women who love them, old faces and new. the city is still los angeles, the year now 1967. easy is in his 40s, living with a gun in his pocket, not giving an inch to anyone he meets, no slight to his race or manhood ignored. out of a hardness ball-peen tampered by the years, is an easy scarcely recognizable compared with the easy of 1948. to re-read Devil In a Blue Dress is to encounter a change in language so drastic as to believe the two books were written by different authors, the aging of easy is reflected in a maturity of writing style that will leave any reader who follows that kind of thing in awe of what mosley is capable of doing with language. the short story, easy is not the same person he used to be.while pondering the philosophy of an extremely difficult german philosopher, easy, unlike the philosopher, describes himself as belonging to the night. but we see his virtues, his loyalty to friends, his honesty, his taking children who have been hurt and abandoned into his house and finding other safe homes for them, a virtue he shares with several of his acquaintances, the blonde nun who brought orphans back from vietnam and his friend, primo, his house filled with a blended family of the birthed and found, around the table of primo and his wife, where there’s always room for one more, compared with the genetic father, pericles and his weariness coping with his family.the reflections on life, mosley’s parade of endless characters, domestic problems, numerous neighborhoods, an accumulation of murders, you have to wonder how mosley packs it all in and brings everything together, in this one, a cliffhanger.

I looked forward every day to immerse myself in the passionate words in this novel. The story was interesting and the characters as usual in Mosley’s books colorful.

The author is such a prolific writer that as I read his works, I see, smell, hear, and feel, and to a great degree understand the character’s thinking. This novel gives a powerful insight into the lives of the marginalized. People walk the same streets, but their world is not the same. Great work!

"Blonde Faith" is the eleventh installment in Walter Mosley's celebrated Easy Rawlins series, and the novel's final scene leads one to believe it may be the last. Indeed, Mosley has recently launched a new series, beginning with "The Long Fall" (2009), in which he introduces a new protagonist/narrator, Leonid McGill, as well as a change of scene, from post-WWII Los Angeles to 21st-century New York.The plot of "Blind Faith" involves Rawlins in a complicated series of searches for missing persons. Easy's friend Christmas Black has abruptly left his young daughter at the Rawlins household with no explanation. A Vietnam veteran, Black is being pursued by a band of men in army uniforms, several of whom are killed in the process. Raymond "Mouse" Alexander, Easy's hitman sidekick, has also disappeared, wanted by the police for apparently murdering a man named Pericles Tarr. Finally, while pursuing these two absentees, Easy is haunted by the fear that he may have permanently lost Bonnie Shea, his one true love, whom he ironically had sent packing after discovering her dalliance with another man.Along the way, Easy encounters Faith Laneer, the blonde whose name provides the book's punning title. She proves to be a link to Christmas Black, as well as a new love interest for Rawlins.On his quest to find one friend and save another, Rawlins must not only overcome immediate obstacles--lies, threats, beatings--posed by his antagonists but must also come to terms with the less tangible but equally dangerous wounds to his psyche left by his breakup with Bonnie. That he ultimately manages to do so is proof of his resourcefulness as a detective and as a man. If we have seen the last of him ("I smiled, and then the world went black" are the book's final words), at least we can take some solace in his having faced his inner demons and essentially maintained his integrity in a world that is rigged to deny his worth.

The 11th instalment in the Easy Rawlins series was a long time coming but Mr Mosley had to develop one more crowd pleaser. Keeping in tune with the book's title as the central character being sought, we had a familiar but strong multi-line search for more than one. However, the Blonde of the title was not who I thought it was going to be.Easy's Rawlins Teflon-like coat of a Private Investigator badge and almost psychic knowledge of good versus evil suddenly opened my eyes to an obvious fact: at some point things were not going to go his way.His perma-loss of Bonnie formed the background of his daily thoughts and actions; even when he tried to forget her. I felt almost sorry for Easy as he approached the inevitable and ultimate loss. As he lost he also gained: a longtime friend's child nearly became his, a new woman to love and an extension to his family.The ending though predictable was not quite how one expected. Surreal, sad, unbelieveable but timely, since the advent of Gone Fishin until now, Easy Rawlins, PI, reigns supreme.

I nearly docked it one star for being so sad.Actually it deserves 5 stars for a brilliant exploration of jealousy. A damn good story too.

Great book

excellent , as usual.

Good story, well told.