To add to his woes his personal life is a mess, starting an affair with EttaMae, the love of his life and partner of his best friend. When people connected to both his IRS charge and his FBI case start dying, it seems he’s swapped going to jail for non-payment of tax to going for murder. In this outing he’s infiltrating a communist cell for the FBI in order to avoid a federal charge for tax evasion. Easy has a habit of finding trouble and acting detective. And that’s just the start of his problems.Ī Red Death is the second book in the Easy Rawlins series set in post-war Los Angeles. The IRS are not happy and continue to make threats, the cops have him in the frame for the tenant’s death, and he’s in love with EttaMae but knows Mouse will kill him if he tries to steal her away. Salvation seems to arrive in the form of the FBI, who offer Easy a chance to skip the tax charges if he helps them investigate a group of communists connected to a local church with activities linked to Champion Aircraft. Adding to his woes is the suspicious death of one of his tenants and the arrival of EttaMae and her child, on-the-run from Easy’s villainous best friend, Mouse. Now the IRS are chasing him for undisclosed income, seeking to press federal charges. Working as a janitor at the buildings he owns, he hides his assets behind a paperwork screen, leaving his associate, Mofass, to front managing the properties. Easy Rawlins has invested his ill-gotten gains from a murderous adventure a few years previously into real estate.

A Red Death by Walter Mosley