SOURCE: "Double Agent Easy Rawlins," in American Visions, Vol. 7, No. 2, April-May 1992, pp. 32-4.

In the following essay, Lomax describes Mosley as possessing a "special talent for altering time and place with words and ideas" which "ripples across every page of his novels."

Pecking absently at his computer during a lunch break six years ago, Walter Mosley wrote these words: "On hot sticky days in Louisiana the fire ants swarmed."

"I loved it," says the 40-year-old detective novelist, author of Devil in a Blue Dress, A Red Death and the soon-to-be-released White Butterfly. "I thought, Maybe I could do something with this."

Mosley's simple, eloquent phrase served as a catalyst for his career as a novelist, revealing a special talent for altering time and place with words and ideas. This talent ripples across every page of his novels. With vivid descriptions and masterful imagery, Mosley reconstructs Los Angeles during...