It's been a good year for Ezekiel Porterhouse Rawlins. He came to life as the not inconsiderable Denzil Washington in Carl Franklin's meaty, satisfying film of Devil In A Blue Dress; his most famous fan was reinstated in the White House for four more years; and now the man himself returns to us by way of an excellent and most welcome fifth outing.

It's 1963. Kennedy is President and Easy is supervising senior head custodian at Sojourner Truth Junior High. His friend, the combustible Mouse, has finally renounced a homicidal past and shows up like clockwork for the janitor's post Easy secured. Life is never easy for a black man in Los Angeles, but in 1963 Easy Rawlins' life is easier than most.

Then Idabell Turner, one of the teachers, cries to Easy that hubby wants to see her little yellow dog dead, and would Easy care for him awhile? Dogs ain't allowed in school, but teacher can turn a heel in ways that'll educate even a man like Ezekiel Rawlins. Only, wouldn't y'know it, for Idabell's husband and brother-in-law suddenly give up breathing, and the law comes a-knocking at the door of a certain senior custodian.

Mosley makes all of this look so simple. Easy and Mouse are contradictory, enthralling characters, less heroes, even less anti-heroes; somehow they've always been more real. That reality fair purrs off these pages. Mosley is a great character writer, even better than his lovingly knotty plotting.

Easy has developed a voice over the series, starting in 1948 and reaching here where older is not necessarily wiser. Mosley's books are true to their history and rich in detail -- when they need an ambulance, a black woman tells her son to, "Tell 'em a white man's been shot" -- but never at the expense of thrills. And it's no coincidence that we're here in late November, either: Mosley summons the ghost of JFK to bring some real pathos to an already painful finale. Subsequent books will never be quite the same again.

This is a far more accomplished book than Mosley's last, the ill-considered R.L.'s Dream. It's the subtle differences between each novel that give them their strength, the changing attitudes of the white authorities, the casual prejudices of society at large and even the complex social strata of the black community itself. The vitality of the Easy Rawlins books (and this is one of the best) comes from them being authentic social history played out as gritty, witty, intelligent thrillers that, if you will, rightfully put the black back into noir.