Cinnamon Kiss
By Walter Mosley
Read by Michael Boatman
Time Warner AudioBooks, (2005)
An Unabridged Recording on 6 CDs
ISBN: 1-59483-035-5
Genre: Mystery - Crime Fiction
Reviewed by Angela Evans - October 24, 2005
Cinnamon Kiss is another wonderful addition to Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series. In this installment of Rawlins adventures, his life, like most of ours, is a solid mix of ups and downs. As this book opens, Rawlins is in a decidedly down spiral. His daughter, Feather, is gravely ill, and her only hope is to receive treatment from a famed Swiss clinic. The only problem is, Rawlins doesn't have the funds needed to pay for her treatments. At wits ends on how to raise the thousands of dollars that are needed, Rawlins considers joining forces with Raymond "Mouse" Alexander to steal the needed funds.
Before Rawlins commences a life of crime, he is saved, or at least he thinks he is, when Robert Lee offers him a solid job. His new job is a simple investigation case. Cinnamon Cargill and her boss, attorney Axel Bowers, have disappeared along with a briefcase full of documents. Rawlins' job is to find the missing couple, or more importantly to his employer - find the documents. Seemingly a straightforward case, Rawlins soon suspects that not everything is on the up and up and that his new boss might not be as honest as he first appeared. Worse, Rawlins soon finds that the case is even more complicated than he ever expected as dead bodies, Nazis, and assassins soon cloud the picture.
Set in the 1960's, Cinnamon Kiss is the story of Rawlins, a black Private Investigator from the Watts area of Los Angeles, who travels to San Francisco to discover the truth behind the disappearance of a white attorney and his assistant. Mosley ably captures the nuances of life in Watts after the horrific riots, and of the subtle racism that stymies Rawlins investigation. This audio edition of Cinnamon Kiss is read by Michael Boatman who has appeared in a range of television series such as China Beach, Spin City, and Law & Order: SVU. His reading brings Rawlins and his era to life and deftly captures Mosley narrative style, cadence, and vibrant descriptions in his reading. The combination of Mosley's imaginative writing and Boatman's artistic oral rendition of the book makes an excellent book superb!
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