Could this be his last? Easy Rawlins is back on the streets of L.A. to sore a crime that threatens the lives of his closest friends

THE BLACK PROVERB, "every goodbye ain't gone," comes to mind when Walter Mosley talks about BLONDE FAITH (Little, Brown and Co., $25.99), the 10th novel that features Easy (Ezekiel) Rawlins. It comes to mind because Mosley says BLONDE FAITH may be the last in the popular series highlighting the heroic, yet hapless, detective in Los Angeles. Then again, maybe it's not.

"I'm thinking about not writing any more Easy Rawlins novels," says Mosley. "But I don't know. I might wake up one day in 20 years and decide there is a story I want tell about Easy Rawlins. But for now, this could be it. You can't write [about] something forever."

Leaving the door open for another installment in a popular series is an old trick of the trade. Or perhaps Mosley borrowed a page from David Chase, the Hollywood director and producer who is best known for his work on the acclaimed HBO series The Sopranos, whose season finale faded to black, leaving fans hanging.

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Still, BLONDE FAITH is a captivating thriller, peppered with historical and philosophical references that, like past Rawlins stories, harken back to the Watts riots when the nation was experiencing a jumble of political uncertainty, racial strife and economic hardship.

The latest story finds Rawlins mourning his longtime love, Bonnie, who is about to be married to another man. He attempts to assuage his loss by taking up lovers, but to no avail. The story is propelled by familiar plot lines and themes that, in the hands of any other, would fall flat. The plot finds Rawlins caring for the daughter of a friend left at his doorstep, and engaging in an all-out hunt for his missing sociopathic, yet likable, friend Raymond (Mouse) Alexander. The dialogue is crisp, and the character descriptions are textured and full of verve.

Rawlins became a popular fictional character beginning in 1990 with DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS. Over the years, his crime investigations have pushed him into the seedy underbelly of society, where he encountered every level of transgressive behavior imaginable. The last book, CINNAMON KISS, written two years ago, found Rawlins entangled in a twisted murder case and in a desperate effort to raise money to send his adopted daughter to a clinic for treatment for a rare blood disease.

While Mosley says he will miss Rawlins for a while, he has plenty to keep him busy. "I have Fearless Jones, some short stories and The Tempest Tales, [a yearlong serial of a new series, in homage to Langston Hughes' The Simple Stories.] I have a lot of things going."

As for Rawlins, he says, "Easy is off being Easy."

COPYRIGHT 2007 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning