In Walter Mosley’s 2016 mystery “Charcoal Joe,” the latest in his Easy Rawlins series, the Los Angeles-based detective, seeking to get his client out from under a murder charge, heads east.

John Clifford, reader both of Rawlins and yours truly, supplied a copy of the relevant passages from the novel, which is set in the early 1960s.

“Once I got to Santa Monica I took Highway 10 all the way to Pomona,” Rawlins narrates. “I stopped at a downtown World Gas Station to get directions for 124 North Raleigh Street.”

The white attendant is reluctant to answer because, Rawlins surmises, “I was a black man in a brown suit asking directions that would take me into the middle of a white neighborhood,” so he pretends to be an insurance salesman there to meet a client.

He makes his way to the address, “a modest whitewashed cottage between a two-floor brick monstrosity and a three-story apartment building with a facade of gray and brown stone,” where he introduces himself to the woman he came to see, Irene. They leave for a coffee shop he saw downtown. Cha-Cha’s Grill and Diner “had an almost vacant parking lot, and most of the tables were empty.”

The waitress, Missy, isn’t friendly.

“The look on her face would have gone well with Corky the gas station attendant,” Rawlins muses. “I thought that maybe breathing the heavy smog out in Pomona turned its permanent residents sour over time.”

Sick burn, Easy. He orders a pastrami sandwich off the one-sheet laminated menu and quizzes Irene about what she knows of the case.

He eats only three bites of his sandwich and she doesn’t touch her chicken soup. Something tells me Easy won’t be rushing back to Pomona.

Take one editor…

Speaking of Pomona, Susan Straight’s 2010 novel “Take One Candle Light a Room” has a passage set in the town:

“That night, when Grady ran out of gas in Pomona, we left the Dodge Dart beside the road and started walking down Mission Boulevard. The old Route 66 — mythical asphalt. We left behind the auto shops and tire places, moved past vacant lots and a tiny motor court where one narrow walk led past doors behind which we could hear muffled televisions. Junkyard dogs threw themselves against chain-link.”

It surprised me that Straight, who lives in Riverside, would confuse Mission Boulevard with Route 66, and I said so in a column a couple of years ago. Afterward, reader Ruby Leavitt emailed with a scoop about that.

Leavitt had just seen Straight speak at an Upland Public Library book club meeting. Having spotted the same seeming error, Leavitt asked about it.

“She said it was her editors who changed it to Route 66. She herself does know better,” Leavitt reported. “They did it because it sounded more interesting.”

It’s true, it does, and I suppose few readers are going to know the difference, or care. And after all, it’s fiction and doesn’t have to adhere to real-world geography.

Or am I only sticking up for editors because they approve my columns?

Culture Corner

• The annual fine book sale of the Friends of the Claremont Library takes on an urgency of sorts due to upcoming renovations to the library that will temporarily shut down the popular Friends bookstore and probably mean cancellation of its May sale. “So this sale needs to count,” Friends member Lanore Pearlman says. With rare, classic, illustrated and autographed volumes, the sale takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 2 at the library, 208 Harvard Ave.

• Speaking of Friends, its On the Same Page community reading choice is “Tangled Vines,” the 2015 nonfiction account by Frances Dinkelspiel of California’s wine history, including the greed and violence that lies under its genteel surface. Culinary historian Richard Foss will discuss California wines in a talk, “From Mission to Prohibition,” at 3 p.m. Dec. 9 in the library meeting room. More events are planned in early 2018.

• Luis Fuerte will sign his book “Louie, Take a Look at This!: My Time With Huell Howser” at noon Dec. 2 at Barnes and Noble, 11090 Foothill Blvd., Rancho Cucamonga.

Valley Vignette

Robert Mugabe’s resignation as president of Zimbabwe reminds me that Cal Poly Pomona was prepared in 1998 to accept him as commencement speaker and give him an honorary doctorate. Protests by faculty, staff and students of his human rights record put the kibosh on the visit. Gee, now that the 93-year-old is unexpectedly out of work, that degree might have really burnished his resumé.

David Allen writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, putting the kibosh on your week. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook, follow @davidallen909 on Twitter and buy “Getting Started” and “Pomona A to Z.”