Mystery writer to deliver Michelin

The morning air still smelled of smoke. Wood ash mainly but there was also the acrid stench of burnt plastic and paint. And even though I knew it couldn’t be true, I thought I caught a whiff of putrid flesh from under the rubble across the street.

For mystery lovers, such prose would have to draw you in and make you want to read on. The words are Walter Mosley’s, the book is Little Scarlet: An Easy Rawlins Mystery, and private investigator Rawlins is the recurring character that has helped make Mosley “a literary artist as well as a master of mystery,” according to The New York Times Book Review.

On Friday, March 4, at 8 p.m., Mosley will be the featured speaker for the annual Michelin Distinguished Visitors Lecture Series. The event is free (no tickets or reservations are required) and will take place in Beckman Auditorium.

As a writer, Mosley is best known for his series of mysteries that feature his character Rawlins, an African American. His career was given a big boost in 1992, when president-elect Bill Clinton named Mosley his favorite writer. Little Scarlet, published in June 2004, was a New York Times bestseller.

Mosley, a Los Angeles native who now lives in New York’s Greenwich Village, had his first Rawlins novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, made into a film starring Denzel Washington. His novels depict the black experience of ordinary men: “Fully formed, complex black men have been absent from much of contemporary literature,” he has said. His characters deal with what it means to be black and male in America while building a life of purpose and fulfillment.

In addition to his mystery writing, Mosley has written three other novels, two works of science fiction, and two nonfiction books. One of these, Chain Gang: Shaking Off the Dead Hand of History, published in 1992, explores a range of issues that includes race, culture, and global politics.

This month, Mosley will be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 21st Annual Celebration of Black Writing Festival in Philadelphia. Later in the year, he will release his first book for young adult readers, titled 47, which will blend history, science fiction, and adventure.

The Michelin Distinguished Visitors Lecture Series was established in 1992 by New York designer Bonnie Cashin in memory of her uncle, James Michelin, a consulting engineer, who had always hoped to attend Caltech. Previous speakers in this series have included architectural critic Vincent Scully, artist David Hockney, playwright Tom Stoppard, architect Frank Gehry, film director Oliver Stone, opera singer Beverly Sills, poet Seamus Heaney, and authors Michael Crichton and Herman Wouk. The purpose of these lectures is to promote creative interaction between the arts and sciences.
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