Devil in a Blue Dress

In the dark world of hardboiled literature, anything can happen at any time for any reason—or no reason at all. In my view, that makes things easy for this debut novel about an unemployed LA factory worker named Easy Rawlins, and that makes things challenging for the story—for the character—as well. 

A man with money and power offers Easy a job looking for a missing blond-haired, white-skinned beauty. Rawlins faces only two problems: He has no experience as a private detective, and he needs to do the detecting with black skin in a segregated, remarkably unequal 1948 America. 

But I… show more.

In Mosely’s first Easy Rawlins novel, Easy is in the thick of it. He’s a war-scarred veteran living in 40s Los Angeles who has to contend with brutal racist cops and white men who wish to harm him for the sole offense of talking to a white woman. He lost his factory job, his mortgage is due, and he finds himself on shifting terrain where it’s nearly impossible to tell allies from enemies.

When the phone rings, it’s never good news. So Easy has to play it smart. Bide his time. Enlist help from his memorably violent associate, Mouse. His… show more.

What I really love about this novel is the voice of the main character, Ezekial “Easy” Rollins. Easy is not your typical P.I. A recently fired machinist in post-war Los Angeles, he’s just a guy trying to pay his bills. But he’s also a black man from the South trying to survive in a white, west-coast world. When a white gangster hires him to find a missing girl, Easy senses that he’s in extreme danger, but he has no choice but to take the job.

Told in the first-person, this book captures all of Easy’s doubt, dread, and defiance as… show more.

Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress, the first of his novels to feature Black WWII-veteran-turned-detective Ezekiel ’Easy’ Rawlins, reads like a hard-boiled blues song.

The prose is both terse and descriptive, flowing easily on the page with Mosley’s fantastic ear for dialogue and the workings of Easy’s inner voice.

Again, we’re in postwar Los Angeles, in 1948, following Easy on a trail of misadventures as he runs afoul of both cops and crooks in his quest to track down a mysterious blonde.

And while Devil in a Blue Dress is most certainly a detective novel, Mosley’s wit and insight… show more.

Mosely’s debut is drenched in barrooms and none better than John’s Place, a speakeasy behind a convenience store that has to stay a speakeasy in 1948 because the owner has trouble with the law. A perfect metaphor for the Black experience: even when it's legal, it’s still illegal for Black Americans. I love this book for its voice: it just sounds so cool. “They didn’t have many groceries, and no fresh produce or dairy goods, but she’d sell you what was there and if you knew the right words, or were a regular, then she’d let you in the club… show more.

I love heroes you can root for who are not perfect people. Easy Rawlings the primary character in the novel is such a guy. Far from perfect, solidly flawed even, we still want him to win. Again the writing is superb. Mosley is like Crumley, and maybe, just maybe, S. A. Cosby has taken some of his inspiration from here, but who knows; dive in and find out for yourself.

I’m a sucker for noirish crime fiction set in L.A., my adopted hometown, and would love to name one of Michael Connelly’s splendid Harry Bosch novels here, but for the fact that Harry is just so damn serious. Not so Easy Rawlins, Walter Mosley’s hard-luck WWII veteran who’s hired off his barstool to track down a missing woman who may or may not have absconded with a large sum of money. Nothing, of course, is quite as it seems in this gritty, twisting romp through Watts, down Central Avenue, and smack into the social and racial politics of post-war… show more.

The first crime novel I read is set in 1950s Los Angeles and centers on Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, a Black WWII veteran living in the predominantly Black neighborhood of South Central. It’s beautifully written, and while the mystery is at the forefront, it's very much about the Black experience in Los Angeles, especially for those who came to Los Angeles during the Great Migration. What's striking is how Easy must use his wits to stay alive, avoid prison, and come out ahead, an enduring metaphor for the Black experience. 

I could pick any of the Easy Rawlins books as favorites, but Devil in a Blue Dress is where Easy started, and is required reading for any historical crime reader. 

Set in the late 1940s, World War II veteran Easy Rawlins is fired from his job at a defense plant. He’s drinking in a friend’s bar, wondering how he’ll pay the mortgage, when a white man walks in offering to pay Easy to locate Daphne Monet, a beautiful blonde known to frequent Black jazz clubs. Of course, it’s not as easy as that, and no one is who he or… show more.

As a white boy from a mid -20th-century California suburb, I had often wondered how poor black folks endured the conditions of their lives without exploding into rage and violence. In the person of Easy Rawlins, Walter Mosley gave me valuable answers. Devil in a Blue Dress expertly integrates racial, class, and personal struggles. Also, and most importantly, the novel’s every character is truly human.