SOURCE: Lock, Helen. “Invisible Detection: The Case of Walter Mosley.” MELUS 26, no. 1 (spring 2001): 77-89.

In the following essay, Lock asserts that Mosley draws upon the literary genre of hard-boiled detective fiction to express issues particular to the contemporary urban African American experience.

In the years since Chester Himes's success in the 1950s and 60s, there has been a comparative dearth of African American detective fiction. The genre was once perceived by African Americans as trivial or, given its primarily white focus, irrelevant. Recently, however, the tide has turned, as writers have started to emerge who have glimpsed, not only the possibilities of the genre for the expression of the African American experience, but also, more importantly, the ways in which it is perfectly designed for the purpose. The most prominent of these writers (who include Barbara Neely, Eleanor Taylor Bland, Penny Mickelbury, and Gary Phillips) is Walter Mosley...