The Man in My Basement - Top Shelf

Ebony, April, 2004

THE MAN IN MY BASEMENT (Little, Brown, $22.95) by Walter Mosley is a departure from the noir style of the Easy Rawlins series, but it is no less engaging and mysterious. Here, Charles Blakey, a young Black man with few options, is falling behind on the mortgage payments for the home that has been in his family for generations when he's approached by Anniston Bennet, a rich White man who offers him $50,000 to live in his basement--to make up for his transgressions.

What unfolds is a tense relationship where Blakey tries to avoid being lured into Bennet's strange world, yet is intrigued by the chance to learn the secrets of White people.