| Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Devil in a Blue Dress |
| Created by | Walter Mosley |
| Portrayed by | Denzel Washington Clarke Peters |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Private detective |
| Children | Jesus Feather Edna |
| Nationality | American |
Ezekiel "Easy" Porterhouse Rawlins is a fictional character created by the American novelist Walter Mosley. Rawlins is an African-American private investigator, a hard-boiled detective and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. He is featured in a series of best-selling mysteries set from the 1940s to the 1960s.
The mysteries combine traditional conventions of detective fiction with descriptions of racial inequities and social injustice experienced by African Americans and other persons of color in the Los Angeles of that period. While Rawlins is clearly in the tradition of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer, he differs sharply from these earlier fictional detectives in that Rawlins is an unlicensed private investigator (though he acquires a license late in the series) with no background or training in law enforcement.
Mosley has written fourteen novels and a collection of short stories featuring Rawlins, his most popular character. Mosley originally featured Rawlins in a novella called Gone Fishin', but it was rejected by several publishers because they didn't think that there was a market for books about black men. When Mosley rewrote the story as a detective novel, he found a publisher.[1]
Mosley once stated he intended to bring the character into contemporary times,[citation needed] but later said the 2007 novel Blonde Faith, which is set in 1967, would be the last.[2] Nevertheless, in 2013 a new Easy Rawlins novel entitled Little Green was published, followed by Rose Gold (2014), Charcoal Joe (2016), Blood Grove (2021), and Farewell, Amethystine (2024).