There's a lot more depth in Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins mystery series than you find in most of this genre. He writes crime fiction with the best of them and he writes about being black in a white-dominated America with affecting power.
Little Scarlet, his latest, is set just days after the 1965 riots in Watts, where the racial tension that sparked the riots is still raw and the disorienting aftermath is just beginning to sink in. In the midst of this chaos, the LAPD asks Easy to help them investigate the death of a black woman who may have been murdered by a white man, an investigation that, if wrongly handled, could rekindle the riots. Easy takes on the case and takes us into his world and onto the highly charged, troubled streets of Los Angeles. Michael Boatman's intelligent narration gives Easy Rawlins the voice he's meant to have, nuanced with anger and sadness and love, and captures the inflections and cadences of the other characters—male, female, black and white—with extraordinary skill and understanding.
Legend of la Mexicana
REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD
"Reality often pales in comparison to legend," says the investigative journalist in Arturo Pérez-Reverte's extraordinary novel
The Queen of the South. But here the "reality" and the legend Pérez-Reverte has created around Teresa Mendoza become one riveting, artfully action-packed, unforgettable tale. It's a tale set in a high-stakes, high-risk world of betrayal and revenge, where the only certainties are that the players kill, remember and die. Teresa grew up dirt-poor in a Mexican narco town where breaking the law is a way of life, then becomes head of one of the biggest international drug-trafficking operations in Southern Europe. Given singular substance by Lina Patel's fine narration, she will remain one of the most complex, compelling characters I've come across in years. This unabridged version is 18 hours long, but I didn't want it to end.
The Queen of the South
By Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Penguin Audio, $49.95
CD, ISBN 0142800716
You can take the boy out of Alabama, but you can't take Alabama and a fierce love of college football out of the boy. Warren St. John is that Alabama boy and his team is the University of Alabama's Crimson Tide. St. John went to his first game when he was six, made his mother take him out of school for the funeral of the legendary "Bear" Bryant, listened to entire games over the phone when he went north to college, and then years later plunged himself into the mystery of why. Why a game and a team can turn rational human beings into fierce and fearsome fanatics, into folks who "totally rearrange their lives, uproot themselves, and shelve familial obligations" to follow their team. The answers he found and the people he met on his quest are all detailed in
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, St. John's humorous, heartfelt "Alabama fan travel memoir" of a season spent among the obsessively devoted RV-ers who drive their massive homes-on-wheels to every Crimson Tide game. Fun even if you're not a football fanatic, necessary if you are.
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer
By Warren St. John
Random House AudioBooks, $27.50
5 hours abridged, CD, ISBN 0739315765
Support your 
"Reality often pales in comparison to legend," says the investigative journalist in Arturo Pérez-Reverte's extraordinary novel
The Queen of the South. But here the "reality" and the legend Pérez-Reverte has created around Teresa Mendoza become one riveting, artfully action-packed, unforgettable tale. It's a tale set in a high-stakes, high-risk world of betrayal and revenge, where the only certainties are that the players kill, remember and die. Teresa grew up dirt-poor in a Mexican narco town where breaking the law is a way of life, then becomes head of one of the biggest international drug-trafficking operations in Southern Europe. Given singular substance by Lina Patel's fine narration, she will remain one of the most complex, compelling characters I've come across in years. This unabridged version is 18 hours long, but I didn't want it to end.
You can take the boy out of Alabama, but you can't take Alabama and a fierce love of college football out of the boy. Warren St. John is that Alabama boy and his team is the University of Alabama's Crimson Tide. St. John went to his first game when he was six, made his mother take him out of school for the funeral of the legendary "Bear" Bryant, listened to entire games over the phone when he went north to college, and then years later plunged himself into the mystery of why. Why a game and a team can turn rational human beings into fierce and fearsome fanatics, into folks who "totally rearrange their lives, uproot themselves, and shelve familial obligations" to follow their team. The answers he found and the people he met on his quest are all detailed in
Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer, St. John's humorous, heartfelt "Alabama fan travel memoir" of a season spent among the obsessively devoted RV-ers who drive their massive homes-on-wheels to every Crimson Tide game. Fun even if you're not a football fanatic, necessary if you are.