Recent listens

Cinnamon Kiss, by Walter Mosley.
Walter Mosley is one of those mystery writers whose books I've seen praised by critics over the years. I decided to give him a go by way of audiobook, now that I have a car with a fancy-schmancy stereo system that works.

I like certain things about the story. I like the way Mosley effectively portrays the tense, racially divided world of Los Angeles during the 1960s, and I like the noirish style of his writing. I like certain aspects of the protagonist and narrator, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, a black private eye who trades favors for information within the insular black community as easily as a fish slipping through water, all the while carefully avoiding the attentions of the white police.

Unfortunately, "Easy" is also such a blatantly hypocritical sexist that it's difficult to like him. Throughout the course of this twisty, turny caper involving lost bonds, Nazi war criminals, a missing beauty, a dwarfish white "consulting detective" and a half-dozen or so murders, "Easy" blithely has sex with at least three or four random women whom he happens to meet. Then, at the end of the book, he dumps his live-in girlfriend for having an affair which, for complicated reasons, was necessary to save the life of their daughter. The sex scenes are described in enough graphic detail that I, who am not particularly squeamish, found it uncomfortable to listen to them. Perhaps I react differently to audio recordings than to printed descriptions.