ALTER MOSLEY'S day job is mystery writing -- sharp, unsentimental prose with plots that weave around the character Easy Rawlins, a reluctant detective featured in the novels ''A Little Yellow Dog'' and ''Devil in a Blue Dress.''

By night, the author himself plays a reluctant literary gumshoe, striving to resolve one of the more enduring mysteries of this country's New York-based publishing industry: why it has such a lily-white work force.

His quest -- filled with all the standard plot twists of conflict and frustration -- has finally brought him uptown to his alma mater, City College of New York. The campus is just a subway ride away from many of the major publishing houses that are quick to cite low starting salaries -- $18,000 -- and competition from wealthier industries for the fact that they have so few minority employees. At the managerial and professional levels of publishing, only 3.4 percent of employees are black, while 1.8 percent are Hispanic, according to Federal figures.

At the urging of Mr. Mosley -- who offered a $10,000 seed grant -- college administrators established a publishing certificate program this year that has already enrolled 42 people, 95 percent of them black, Hispanic or Asian students.

They include black students like Brigette Browning-Wilson, 29, of the Bronx, who read about the program on a bulletin board notice and eagerly enrolled with the promise of a paid internship after completing four courses in publishing.

''A low salary doesn't discourage me,'' said Ms. Browning-Wilson, who expects to start an internship after graduating in June. ''I want to get into children's publishing and I feel that it's a career where every day I work I'm going to enjoy going to the office.''

Mr. Mosley first approached the college president, Yolanda Moses, last November with an appeal to start a program while he was still chairman of the PEN American Center's Open Book Committee, which was formed to promote diversity in the publishing industry. But he resigned from the committee in frustration because he thought that the executive board of PEN, the international writers' organization -- which included the black writer Jamaica Kincaid -- had not done enough to hire members of minority groups for its own staff.

Though PEN says it supports Mr. Mosley's efforts, he is still smarting. At the San Francisco book festival earlier this month, a member of the audience questioned Mr. Mosley about a dispute with Ms. Kincaid centering on the question of whether to set aside a position for a minority candidate. He answered by summing up a general disappointment with PEN. ''It was awful and so I quit,'' he said, adding, that that was ''my problem with all the people at PEN; I dislike them.''

Beth Smith, the new coordinator of PEN's Open Book Committee, said that the group remained committed to promoting diversity in the publishing industry. It is trying to raise money to establish a job bank on the Internet and says it would like to maintain a supportive relationship with the City College publishing program, possibly securing more internships for the students.

Ms. Kincaid could not be reached for comment.

But a few days after the San Francisco festival, Mr. Mosley was more conciliatory. He said he had also left the organization because he had other priorities. ''I can't just say that the hierarchy of PEN was my only problem,'' he said. ''There's something that needed to be done and I knew what had to be done and that's this publishing institute.''

Along with Mr. Mosley, the coordinator of PEN's Open Book Committee, Catherine McKinley, also shifted to the City College campus to work on the publishing program with the program's new director, David Unger. And in a short time, college administrators have recruited instructors, developed course offerings and laid the groundwork for a fund-raising effort that has already drawn a pledge of financial support and internships from Bantam Doubleday Dell, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann A.G.

Last month, Mr. Mosley started sending personal letters appealing for support from authors in the prosperous upper tier of the literary class, like William Styron, John Updike, Terry McMillan and Stephen King. Mr. Mosley and Ms. Moses, the college's president, are also approaching top executives with appeals for help and internships.

The goal is to raise $400,000 annually for the next four years to finance office equipment, to hire more staff and to subsidize paid internships at smaller publishing houses that may not be able to afford to hire the students. John Lubbe, the college's vice president for development, said most of the credit for the swift birth of the publishing program must go to Mr. Mosley.

''We are really grateful to have someone who is a real booster and to provide some energy and ideas that have really enabled this to get on the fast track,'' Mr. Lubbe said.

Photos: Walter Mosley (Dana Lixenberg/Outline); Jamaica Kincaid (Paul O. Boisvert for the New York Times)
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