“Mosley is a master of craft and narrative, and through his incredibly vibrant and diverse body of work, our literary heritage has truly been enriched...” —National Book Foundation
“Easy's finely calibrated understanding of and commentary on the social and racial climate around him gives the novel its defining texture and power...” —Booklist
“Mosley does a fine job highlighting a world of Black survivors who know how difficult their struggle remains, every day of every decade. This marvelous series is as relevant as ever.” —Publishers Weekly
On February 20th, Mulholland Books will publish a new novel from Walter Mosley titled Down the River Unto the Sea. In this book a former NYPD cop once imprisoned for a crime he did not commit must solve two cases: that of a man wrongly condemned to die, and his own.
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 by his enemies within the NYPD, a charge which lands him in solitary at Rikers Island.
A decade later, King is a private detective, running his agency with the help of his teenage daughter, Aja-Denise. Broken by the brutality he suffered and committed in equal measure while behind bars, his work and his daughter are the only light in his solitary life. When he receives a card in the mail from the woman who admits she was paid to frame him those years ago, King realizes that he has no choice but to take his own case: figuring out who on the force wanted him disposed of—and why.
Running in parallel with King’s own quest for justice is the case of a Black radical journalist accused of killing two on-duty police officers who had been abusing their badges to traffic in drugs and women within the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
Joined by Melquarth Frost, a brilliant sociopath, our hero must beat dirty cops and dirtier bankers, craven lawyers, and above all keep his daughter far from the underworld in which he works. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: King’s client’s, and King’s own.
Resistance takes many forms, particularly in the current political climate. Few methods of protest are as cheerfully strange and purposefully bizarre as “The Obama Inheritance.”
This collection of 15 short stories, inspired by right-wing conspiracy theories about the 44th president, take aim at the freak-show realities of the 45th. Talents such as Walter Mosley, Robert Silverberg and Kate Flora start with the right-wing delusions that Barack Obama was a closet Muslim, a Kenyan, a socialist or just the creator of death panels — and spin them out to their (illogical) conclusions. Read the rest of this entry »
Fifteen writers riff on various wild conspiracy theories generated about President Obama over the years. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the sly short stories in The Obama Inheritance pack a punch.
Laurie R. King in conversation with Walter Mosley, June 3, 2017. Sponsored by Mystery Writers of America, NorCal chapter, and by the Bay Area Book Fest.
LIGHT THE DARK, a new collection of 46 acclaimed authors writing about their creative process and what inspires them, is now available from Penguin Books. The collection includes Walter Mosley’s essay titled “How I Awoke” on how discovering Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye at the age of fourteen changed his life. “For the first time I understood the power of language to reach beyond the real and into the metaphysical and metaphor…It was a step beyond the limitations of the physical world and into a realm where a thing and its opposite could meet and magically become something else.”
The government is declaring war on the press and the press is fighting to uphold the journalistic freedom necessary for democracy to function. Genuine news media outlets are discredited at every turn while fake news — the real fake news — gains influence. It’s no wonder that public trust in the media is at an unprecedented low. Read the rest of this entry »
We hosted an interview from last fall with Walter Mosley about his newly published book, Folding the Red Into the Black: Developing a Viable UNtopia for Human Survival in the 21st Century.
Mosley is the author of more than 43 critically acclaimed books, including the major bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins. He is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, a Grammy and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
SOUTH BEND — At the end of the novel “Blonde Faith,” Walter Mosley decided that Easy Rawlins, his most famous character, had to die.
So after 11 Easy Rawlins novels since “Devil in a Blue Dress” debuted in 1990, Mosley decided to allow Rawlins to have a fatal accident at the end of “Blonde Faith” in 2007.
Mosley told an audience at the St. Joseph County Public Library that he didn’t know where to take Rawlins, the black World War II veteran private eye whom the world first met in “Devil in a Blue Dress.”
“‘Blonde Faith’ was a very romantic novel in a way and I really liked that,” he said. “I enjoyed it, but I felt that I was repeating myself.” Read the rest of this entry »
Best-selling novelist Walter Mosley will publish a new novel with Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, EW can announce exclusively.
Titled Down the River Unto the Sea, the novel centers on a former New York City police detective, now working as a Brooklyn PI, who is investigating the case of a Black civil rights activist convicted of murdering two city policemen. At the same time, he’s still trying to piece together the conspiracy that caused his own downfall at the hands of the police.
This novel will mark Mosley’s return to Little, Brown, where he’ll be edited and published by Mulholland Books’ Josh Kendall. Down the River Unto the Sea is slated for a Feb. 20, 2018 publication.
Introducing King Oliver
We hosted an interview from last fall with Walter Mosley about his newly published book, Folding the Red Into the Black: Developing a Viable UNtopia for Human Survival in the 21st Century.
SOUTH BEND — At the end of the novel “
