Mosley writes classic hard-boiled PI fiction. We ride along with Easy Rawlins as he tries to prove a young black man’s innocence who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and to help others solve their problems along the way. One of those problems is to hide an African king who has married Easy’s ex-girlfriend in order to immigrate to the States and escape those from his home country who want to kill him.

The excellent writing pulls you into the dark side of LA and the characters are interesting and believable. Charcoal Joe is one of those books that kept me up into the middle of the night.