Anne Bonny #BookReview Rose Gold by Walter Mosley 5* #EasyRawlins #Series 1960s LA @wnbooks ‘I am a HUGE fan of Walter Mosley’s writing style and he provides the most AMAZING book quotes. His writing is informative, intriguing and genius!’

Rose Gold by Walter Mosley ~ Easy Rawlins #13
My own copy




My Review:

I hit a reading slump and was desperate to read one of my author favourites to pull me out. So I decided to order the last two novels in the Easy Rawlins series, that I haven’t read yet!

Another thing I love about this specific series, is being able to step into Easy’s shoes and see life through his eyes. After all, how else am I going to experience being an African American male in 1967?

The novel opens on moving day, four white armed men appear at Easy’s new address. Easy instantly becomes alert and apprehensive about what they want?
They require his assistance with a particularly sensitive case. A missing person’s case, but no simple ordinary case by any means. Rosemary Goldsmith is the daughter of a billionaire arms dealer. The detectives are unclear whether Rosemary is involved in her own abduction, hence the need to keep this case of the legit records.

Easy is offered $80K for the missing person’s case and $25K upon completion. Easy maybe many things, but stupid ain’t one of them. He is immediately aware that this case must have some serious danger attached.
But like most PI’s he can’t resist the lure of an intriguing case.

Within the novel we are reunited with various characters from the series. The novel does explore and update readers on Easy’s children and best friend Mouse. But the series, really is best read from the beginning, to fully appreciate these characters and their relationships with Easy.

Back to the case, Rosemary is a student at UC Santa Barbara university and has been rumoured to have become friendly with known radical ‘battling Bob Mantle’. Before Easy can even get remotely close to Bob Mantle’s gym, he has his windshield shot out and police harass easy the victim of the crime.

The only cop Easy trusts is Detective Melvin Suggs, who is currently on leave. Easy recruits him to help on the case in exchange for helping Suggs with his recent suspension from the police force. This is where the novel takes a unique spin. Mouse is not as involved in this novel, his character sits it out, as such.
But it doesn’t take from the enjoyment of the novel at all.

This is complex mystery with political themes. There are spin-off stories which add extra depth. I cannot wait to read the next in the series Charcoal Joe. 5*

To fully appreciate the exceptional writing of Walter Mosley, I have left my usual quotes to the end of my review. I guess I am leaving them open to the readers interpretation, as does the author himself.

‘No amount of silver could buy the passions in an aging man’s heart’

‘You know the only thing worse in their books than a black mother is the white mother of a negro child’

‘Innocence was rarely a key factor for justice in the world Bob and I inhabited’

Walter Mosley

Anne Bonny #BlogTour ~ Extract Unrest by @jesper_stein #NordicNoir #CrimeFiction #NewRelease @TheMirrorBooks #Unrest #AxelSteen

Unrest by Jesper Stein
Translated by David Young





Piver went into Nemoland. He felt safe enough in here to turn his attention back to the camcorder. He bought another gold label and settled in a dark corner on an old sofa and took out the camera.

A section of Nørrebrogade right next to the Box appeared on the screen. The full light of day. Pavement, cycle lane, road, cycle lane, pavement, wall and a section of the cemetery. He estimated that the camera covered 100 yards along the street and 50 yards wide. The time indicated that it was set up at 10.21 on Thursday morning. He spooled forward and saw the riots, demonstrators throwing stones, rubbish bins being pushed over, the police driving wildly after people in their transport vehicles. He relived the whole day.

At 15.23 he saw three plain-clothes officers chasing a man and smacking him up against the wall of the cemetery. There didn’t appear to be any demonstrations at that point. Piver stopped, spooled back and tried to find a button he could use to zoom in. He couldn’t, but there was no doubt what was happening on the small screen. The man had his hands twisted behind his back by two of the officers, while the third pressed his hand against his throat in a half stranglehold. The man’s cry for help came through clear as a bell. The officer holding the man around his throat now began hitting his upper body with his baton. At the same time, the other two had put him in handcuffs, and now they lifted him up and began to drag him off. Both had their batons out and used them several times. They were really hitting him hard – on his back, neck and head, before throwing him into one of the police vans. The man didn’t resist at any point.

Was that what they were afraid of? Was all that talk about a murder just a smokescreen to hide the fact that they were looking for some footage that clearly showed pure, unadulterated police violence?

Whatever – it looked completely crazy. Piver was agitated.

He carried on watching on fast forward. Yesterday’s riots flowed across the screen like a surreal ballet with activists and uniformed officers in the leading roles and curious Copenhageners and the press as passive spectators. Occasionally, it went quiet, and the grey asphalt of the street lay bare like an abandoned stage. At one point, two containers were set on fire and the white light of the ames rose and disappeared at express speed. He kept an eye on the cemetery as it moved towards evening and darkness fell. He stopped the tape whenever he saw someone moving into the murk under the trees behind the yellow wall. There were uniformed police officers on patrol, plain-clothes police and individual citizens, but nothing that looked like a murder.

Until 01.33.

They came out from under the trees inside the cemetery just opposite the camera. One of them was wearing dark clothes and a cap pulled down over his head so that his face was obscured. The other was bareheaded with dark hair, but walking as if he were drunk or dizzy. The first one had an arm around him and it looked as though he was helping him along. They disappeared behind the wall exactly where the cops had been bustling about with their projectors all morning. A couple of minutes passed and the man with the cap appeared again. He stared at something that was hidden behind the wall. There was a white flash. He put something in his pocket, which Piver guessed was a camera or mobile, lifted his cap and first looked up, then to the sides before turning around and disappearing under the trees into the cemetery.

Piver’s whole body went hot. His pulse was pumping so crazily that he got earache for a moment. Could it really be true? Here it was. The evidence the cops would do anything to get hold of. There was no doubt. Now he understood why it was crucial for them.

Jesper Stein, journalist, forfatter
Jesper Stein

UNREST_blog tour 2018 (V2)