A Red Death

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 the favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. FBI Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First African Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist union organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin...

Walter Mosley is the author of four previous mystery novels in the Easy Rawlins series: Devil in a Blue Dress (basis for the acclaimed film starring Denzel Washington), A Red Death, White Butterfly, and Black Betty, a New York Times bestseller. In August 1995 he published his first non-genre novel, RL's Dream, to widespread praise. Mosley is the current president of the Mystery Writers of America, a member of the executive board of the PEN American Center and founder of its Open Book Committee, and is on the board of directors of the National Book Awards. His novels are now published in eighteen countries. He is at work on a book featuring a new character, a philosophical and tough ex-convict named Socrates Fortlow; sections have already appeared in Esquire and GQ. A native of Los Angeles, Mosley lives in New York City.