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A review by rainweaver13
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
4.0
"Devil in a Blue Dress" has been on my to read list since forever, so I'm glad I finally got to read it.
It's a detective novel, but in a different world from any of the others I've ever read. Easy Rawlins is a black man, back in California after serving in World War II, and facing frustration in finding the same old prejudices that existed before he faced death while serving the country. He doesn't set out to be a detective.
He just needs money to make his house payment, since he got laid off from his job at an airplane factory. So when an old friend directs him to a white man who offers Easy good money just to find out where a woman named Daphne Monet is, Easy figures why not? The woman was known to hang around in black jazz clubs (and other kinds of clubs) and the white man knew he couldn't look for her without scaring her off.
An attempt to make some easy money ends up involving multiple murders, beatings, false arrests, a suitcase full of money, and a slippery woman who defies definition.
Set in the late '40s in L.A. and published in the '90s, "Devil in a Blue Dress" provides a walk into a world of its own and an examination of the evil that men do and the lies people tell themselves in order to survive.
I wish I'd read this a long time ago.
It's a detective novel, but in a different world from any of the others I've ever read. Easy Rawlins is a black man, back in California after serving in World War II, and facing frustration in finding the same old prejudices that existed before he faced death while serving the country. He doesn't set out to be a detective.
He just needs money to make his house payment, since he got laid off from his job at an airplane factory. So when an old friend directs him to a white man who offers Easy good money just to find out where a woman named Daphne Monet is, Easy figures why not? The woman was known to hang around in black jazz clubs (and other kinds of clubs) and the white man knew he couldn't look for her without scaring her off.
An attempt to make some easy money ends up involving multiple murders, beatings, false arrests, a suitcase full of money, and a slippery woman who defies definition.
Set in the late '40s in L.A. and published in the '90s, "Devil in a Blue Dress" provides a walk into a world of its own and an examination of the evil that men do and the lies people tell themselves in order to survive.
I wish I'd read this a long time ago.