LITTLE SCARLET

In another outstanding offering, Mosley's Easy Rawlins rambles, full of repressed rage and passion, through the burnt-out streets of post-riot Watts. Rawlins has been recruited by the LAPD to track down whoever is murdering black women who date white men. As usual, our conflicted hero, sketched deftly and vividly by Mosley and voiced with layers of honesty and outrage by Michael Boatman, faces society's demons and his own in his search. Boatman gives life to the victims and perpetrators of prejudice and hate and illuminates the cast of characters--uptight white detectives; ghetto thugs; devious, sultry women; and sullen men--who often unwittingly play a part in social evolution. D.J.B. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 04]