Charles Blakey, the protagonist of Walter Mosley's new novel The Man In My Basement, grew up hearing that his family could trace its lineage back to African nobility, but as Basement opens, this knowledge offers little help. Well into his 30s with no job, no degree, no prospects, and few friends, Blakey spends most of his time drinking and reading science fiction in a stately Hamptons home that's been in his family for generations. If he can't find a way to pay the mortgage, however, he might be the house's last Blakey tenant. Enter Anniston Bennet, a white man with seemingly limitless means and an unusual offer: For a hefty fee, he'll rent Blakey's basement for the summer. There are strings, of course: Blakey has to provide discretion and food, and then there's the matter of constructing equipment prior to Bennet's arrival–equipment that makes the basement look a lot like a prison cell. Best known for his Easy Rawlins mystery novels, Mosley frequently deals with the clash between the powerful and the powerless, showing how one class has the ability to commit true evil, while the other is mostly limited to vice. Basement turns that dynamic on its head, immersing its characters in a game that neither may be able to control, and as Blakey's fear gives way to curiosity about his willing captive, he begins to question, not always kindly, what brought Bennet to seek imprisonment in this particular basement. Even without a murder to solve, Mosley knows how to get the pages turning. Blakey and Bennet's exchanges have the crispness of a great legal thriller and the bottomless moral inquiry of a Beckett play. (And, as a Mosley hero, Blakey still takes time to bed women at regular intervals.) While the focus remains on Bennet's revelation of his history, Mosley keeps his protagonist's own slow journey into the past in the picture, leading both men to conclusions both uncompromising and true. In the process, both find mysteries that even Rawlins would have a hard time solving.