AmySea

A Red Death takes place during the era of the Red Scare, and Easy Rawlins finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place as the government tries to root out communist sympathizers. 

A Red Death had a plot that was a little less twisty than the other books that I've read by Walter Mosley, and it was easier to keep track of the characters, but I didn't like A Red Death as well as Devil in a Blue Dress or Fear Itself (this one is not an Easy Rawlins book).  I didn't think that the world building was quite as strong in this book, and there seemed to be a lot more hate bubbling to the surface in this one.  Of course, the Red Scare was a time of hatred and fear, so maybe that's what Mosley was trying to emphasize.  It's an interesting time of history, sandwiched between WW II and all the hatred and fear that war displayed, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.  It will be interesting to see what Easy's life has in store for him as time and race relations in America change.