Walter Mosley: A Red Death (UK 2018)

From the Publisher:
'This novel is so hot, it burns the fingers' Evening Standard
'Mosley's second novel confirms him as one of crime writing's finds of the 1990s' Daily Telegraph

It's 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles, a moral tar pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of "the hurting business" and into the housing (and favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin...

Walter Mosley: A Red Death. Orion, ISBN 9781474608619 (April, 2018), eBook, 1.02 MB (ca. 288 p.), £8.99.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death (UK 2004)

From the Publisher:
'It has come to my attention, sir, that between August 1948 and September of 1952 you came into possession of at least three real estate properties.
'I have reviewed your tax records back to 1945 and you show no large income, in any year. This would suggest that you could not legally afford such expenditures...'

When an income tax officer makes him an offer he can't refuse, Easy Rawlins is forced out of retirement and into the infiltration of his local church, the First African Baptist, and the surveillance of local radicals. The murderers strike and he becomes the prime suspect of the Los Angeles Police Department who lose no sleep over the fate of 'freelance' private eyes.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death. Serpent's Tail, ISBN 1852427698 (May, 2004), 284 p., £7.99.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death (USA 2002)

From the Publisher:
It's 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles, a moral tar pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of "the hurting business" and into the housing (and favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin...

Walter Mosley: A Red Death. Featuring an Original Easy Rawlins Short Story "Silver Lining". Washington Square Press, ISBN 0743451767 (October, 2002), 320 p., $14.00.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
It's 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles, a moral tar pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of "the hurting business" and into the housing (and favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin...

Walter Mosley: A Red Death. An Easy Rawlins Mystery. Pocket Books, ISBN 0671010069 (June, 1997), 245 p., $3.99.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death (USA 1992)

From the Publisher:
It's 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles, a moral tar pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of "the hurting business" and into the housing (and favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin...

Walter Mosley: A Red Death. An Easy Rawlins Mystery. Pocket Books, ISBN 0671749897 (August, 1992), 245 p., $4.99.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death (UK 1992)

From the Publisher:
'It has come to my attention, sir, that between August 1948 and September of 1952 you came into possession of at least three real estate properties.
'I have reviewed your tax records back to 1945 and you show no large income, in any year. This would suggest that you could not legally afford such expenditures...'

When an income tax officer makes him an offer he can't refuse, Easy Rawlins is forced out of retirement and into the infiltration of his local church, the First African Baptist, and the surveillance of local radicals. The murderers strike and he becomes the prime suspect of the Los Angeles Police Department who lose no sleep over the fate of 'freelance' private eyes.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death. Serpent's Tail, ISBN 185242236X (May, 1992), 284 p., £8.99.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
A Red Death plunges Easy deep into the political, legal, and moral tar pits of Los Angeles in the early fifties, when Red-baiting and blacklisting were official policy and racial tensions boiled.

Easy is now out of 'the hurting business,' and into the housing (and the favor) business, on the strength of funds dating from his earlier advent ures. He's a little older, a little wiser - and in a lot more trouble. He suddenly finds a corrupt, racist IRS agent breathing down his neck (and reaching for his wallet) about some unpaid taxes. His only out: cut a deal with the FBI to infiltrate the First African Baptist Church and spy on a former Polish resistance fighter suspected of stealing defense plans. Meanwhile, Easy's romantic life becomes equally complicated and dangerous when he takes in his old flame Etta Mae Harris. Hard on her heels is Raymond 'Mouse' Alexander, her ex-husband, Easy's best friend, a dark, gleefully homicidal angel. Then the murders begin and the LAPD decides that Easy is a convenient suspect. His search for the actual murderer must be conducted in an ethical mine field, where the stark choice is between betrayal and survival.

A Red Death again displays Walter Mosley's wonderful strengths: a hypnotic narrative voice, crackling dialogue, wonderful subsidiary chara cters, the vivid sense of an almost mythical Los Angeles - and a hero with a winning combination of hard-boiled attitude and hard-earned compassion. It is clearly the work of an emerging master of American crime writing.

Walter Mosley: A Red Death. W. W. Norton, ISBN 0393029980 (May, 1992), 284 p., $19.95.