Devil in a Blue Dress

Walter Mosley is another prolific and talented author who I’ve not read and reviewed before. Midwest Dave reviewed one of his books in 9/15, but I missed that review. Then, this book was strongly recommended by another friend. Thanks Robbie. Maybe I should stop being amazed when I run across such authors since it seems to happen so often. Devil in a Blue Dress was Mosley’s first novel, written in 1990, and it was a 1995 movie starring Denzel Washington. It’s written as a current day crime novel, which looks back at African-American life in Los Angeles in the post-war 1940s. Mosley introduces his sleuth, Easy Rawlins, who then becomes the protagonist in 12 subsequent novels. Mosley has written 40 other books, some nonfiction, and five of those novels have been made into movies. Wow! I can see why Dave was raving about him, and I already have downloaded another of his novels.

There was a post war exodus of African-Americans to Los Angeles, especially from Texas and Louisiana. But, while the weather in California was like heaven to them, life in LA was not easy and many often felt it was too overwhelming. Numbers of them fled back home, and doing so was not far from Rawlins’ mind. But, he had just bought a small house which he was supporting with his labor at an aircraft factory. But then he got fired because he failed to kowtow to his white boss. Racism was alive and strong in L.A., and you had to know how to play the game. The house was his pride and joy, and he was not about to just give it away. Faced with his mortgage payments, Rawlins accepted $100 to help a white man find a woman, Daphne Monet – who had been seen wearing a blue dress. It seemed like a simple thing, and thus begins the noir story of murder and desperation. I thought the plot got rather convoluted at the end, but I’m hooked on Mosley.