Little Scarlet - Walter Mosley

Just after devastating riots tear through Los Angeles in 1965 the police turn up at Easy Rawlin's doorstep to ask for his help.

A man was wrenched from his car by a mob at the riots' peak and escaped into a nearby apartment building. Soon afterward, a redheaded woman known as Little Scarlet was found dead in that building - and the fleeing man is the obvious suspect. But the man has vanished. The police fear that their presence in certain neighbourhoods could spark a new inferno, so they ask Easy Rawlins to see what he can discover. The vanished man is the key, but he is only the beginning.

Rawlins's hunt for the killer reveals a new city emerging from the ashes. Mosley's lean and musical vernacular captures the heat and the rhythm of Los Angeles' heart, where danger is the common currency of everyday life. Little Scarlet is further proof that Mosley is 'a master of mystery' (New York Times Book Review).