By Walter Mosley
Little, Brown and Company
Hardcover, Audio CD (Unabridged) and Large Print Editions

Easy Rawlins' greatest desire is saving his daughter, Feather, from a rare blood disease. But he still finds time to fret over his unfaithful common-law wife while satisfying his flesh with his own unfaithfulness. He pretends to be a family man of morality and philosophy but is no more than an animal doing what feels right at any given moment.

The only cure for Feather's disease is an expensive medical treatment in Switzerland. Easy's friend, Mouse, offers to help steal enough money to pay the fee but Easy chooses an alternative.

He takes a job investigating the disappearance of an attorney and a briefcase filled with valuable documents. His search leads him through the hippie culture of Haight-Ashbury and to shady deals involving former Nazi officials.

Cinnamon Kiss Excerpt Here you could distinguish different kinds of hippies. There were the clean-cut ones who washed their hair and ironed their hippie frocks. There were the dirty bearded ones on Harley-Davidson motorcycles. There were the drug users, the angry ones. There were the young (very young) runaways who had come here to blend in behind the free love philosophy. Bright colors and all that hair is what I remember mainly. ©2005 Walter Mosley Published with permission from Little, Brown and Company

Mosley's novel presents three killers, presumably to liven up the story. The only one necessary to the plot is a cardboard cutout who enters, gives his performance and exits like bad theater. Another is a former military agent who murdered an entire village in Viet Nam but has no bearing on the story. The third, Mouse, is the only one worth reading about. In fact, he is the only interesting character in the book.

Mosley repeatedly plays the "poor black man " card. The narrative is often interrupted to expound upon just how bad minorities have it in America. Readers are lead to wonder if they should feel guilty.

The women in Cinnamon Kiss tend to be fools, whores or victims. The story's sexual tension builds until a disappointing scene that borders on the pornographic in which Easy expresses rather disturbing thoughts on sexuality. Late in the novel, while Easy's wife is nursing Feather in Switzerland, he finds "redemption" in a one-night fling with Cinnamon Cargill. Cinnamon holds the key to the disappearance and may have big plans for Easy.

Bookworm's Briefing
Cinnamon Kiss offers all the elements of a good detective story, but never rises above the beastial desires of its protagonist. It is a shame that Mosley is not nearly as sensitive about sexual exploitation as he is about racism.