SOURCE: Stuart, Andrea. “Low Life, High Art.” New Statesman and Society 8, no. 374 (13 October 1995): 33.

In the following review of R. L.'s Dream, Stuart praises Mosley for his clearly drawn characters and his lyrical prose which resembles the rhythms of blues music.

Being nominated as President Clinton's favourite author doesn't seem to have hurt Walter Mosley's career. In fact, with the publication of this new novel and the film version of Devil in a Blue Dress, starring Denzel Washington, opening to rave reviews in the U.S., it would be fair to say that right now Mosley is—as the saying goes—“shitting gold”. One of a small number of great detective writers who have used their genre to explore wider moral dilemmas, he is also the only real heir to Chester Himes, the visionary black crime writer whose picture of Harlem life in the 1950s has had such...