Devil in a Blue Dress: An Easy Rawlins Mystery

This was an interesting listen with many twists. But I found the setting - post-WWII California - even more entertaining.

This is a solid, concise, well-written and well-read noir detective story set in Los Angeles shortly after World War II. The recently fired Easy Rawlins, in need of money to pay the mortgage on his modest Watts house with its avocado and fruit trees, accepts a seemingly innocuous job to look for a beautiful white woman and then becomes caught up in a tangled web of desire, greed, racism, and violence. In addition to the historical Southern Californian setting, the most interesting part of the novel involves race, most noir detective stories involving white detective heroes, but this one featuring an African American war veteran, a strong and brave and dignified man who has killed white men (German soldiers) in combat, but who nonetheless finds himself tongue-tied when questioned by haughty white American men. He has been living under the radar in a very racist society and now must find a way to deal with the ugly and violent and petty machinations of powerful white people in order to save his house and his life. Easy???s voice, both in Walter Mosley???s spicy and authentic first-person narration and in Michael Boating???s excellent reading of it, is appealing and humane. Boating effectively brings to life the different characters, from the formidable loose canon Mouse to the damaged and damaging Daphne Monet. The novel has plenty of violence and sex, but these are mostly in the service of story and character rather than being gratuitous.

I thought the story, the writing and the reader were brilliant. I very much enjoyed the story.

Although I am a real mystery fan, I found this book to be a little to graphic for my taste. The story was a good story, I have seen this made into a movie so was already familiar with the story. I don't regret listening to this, but won't likely purchase another book by this author,

Good little story with a likeable main character. Plot twists. I'd read the next installment.

Mosley grabs you from the opening lines painting a vivid picture of post-war LA as seen by Easy Rawlins his unwilling private investigator. It's a fun ride and Boatman's steady narration is a pleasure to listen to.

I really enjoyed the story development, the attention to detail and powerful narration. This captured an intimacy and honesty that I don't find in many books. Best of all I just wanted to keep listening because I needed to know what happened next.

I would recommend this book because it is well-written and centered in the African American community which is a perspective not covered enough.

The plot was unpredictable and engaging, keeping us interested and eager to hear what came next. It was more violent than we expected and seemed more realistic in some ways, not your usual "turn the bad guys in to the authorities" ending.

Good dialect work. Easy to listen to.

We listen as we drive across country so we listen to one or two books in each direction from California to Illinois. We definitely wanted to return to the book when we were comfortably on our way.

I didn't know what to expect, but decided to try out a new author and the book was great. The glimpse into that time period was alive with compelling characters and a great narrative that keeps you on the case right up to the last minute. I can't wait to get the next one!

Easy Rawlins has just lost his factory job and needs to find a way to make money before the the mortgage payment comes due for his home within just a few days. This is the late 1940s and Ezekiel, an African American has returned from the war battle worn and with few illusions, and his house is the one stable thing in his life for which he's willing to fight in order to keep. When a suspicious white man enrols him to find a white girl called Daphne Monet, last seen in one of the illegal bars in the company of a well-known gangster, Easy knows he can't trust the man and questions his motives for wanting to find Daphne in the first place. But money is money and this job pays well... though is he prepared for the most dangerous character in the story, in the shape of a very beautiful and sexy Daphne? This first novel in the Easy Rawlins series has a lot going for it, not least of which the descriptions of a bygone nitty gritty downtown Los Angeles where walking into a bar could be more dangerous than walking the streets at night. The hardboiled atmosphere is palpable and Ezekiel is easy to like, which means I'll more than likely be revisiting this series in near future. Having read this very shortly after the first book in the Harlem Cycle by Chester Himes, I feel confident in saying that Mosley was more than likely influenced by his predecessor, and that can only be a good thing.