Set in 1954 in Watts (the Easy Rawlins series began in 1948), ''Fearless Jones'' trolls the same waters Mosley has previously explored: the arbitrariness of a police system that relies on racial terror as a substitute for justice, the dovetailing of anti-Semitism and racial prejudice and the tenuous necessity of interracial collaboration and perhaps occasional friendship. ''A Little Yellow Dog,'' set in 1963, concluded with Mouse being rushed to the hospital, on the verge of death after being shot twice. In that light, perhaps the central mystery of ''Fearless Jones'' is why Mosley has chosen to begin a new series, set in the same place and at the same time, with a new character.
Yet for all of his stylistic forays, Mosley's most enduring creations remain his series heroes Easy Rawlins, the reluctant detective, and Raymond (Mouse) Alexander, his sometime sidekick. His fiction ranged from the allegorical, almost folkloric, linked collections of Socrates Fortlow short stories, set in present-day Los Angeles - ''Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned'' (1997) and ''Walkin' the Dog'' (1999) - to ''Blue Light'' (1998), a frustratingly muzzy science-fiction exploration of the world beyond race. After earning comparisons to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Mosley broadened his voice and range of address, though not always successfully. IN the half-decade since the publication of his last mystery novel, ''A Little Yellow Dog,'' Walter Mosley has repeatedly signaled his discomfort with the confines of genre.
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