Devil In A Blue Dress
I was on a rather long road trip recently. One way to pass the time was listening to some Books on Tape, err CD. It was fascinating how different companies attempted to tell the story. Some narrators did different voices for each characters. Some narrators were hired because of their geographical accent. For example: a British author had a British narrator even though the story didn’t take place in Britain. I swear one narrator’s goal was to put the audience to sleep. A very dangerous thing if you are driving a car. On the way back to my hometown, I put on Walter Mosley’s “Devil In a Blue Dress.” This is not a review of of the production values of the audio disc. It was superior. This is a review of story itself, and what a story it is.
What it’s about: It’s the story of a man in 1948 nicknamed “Easy” Rawlins who was recently laid off, and now needed a job. He was approached by a man named Dewitt Albright who asked him to look for a white woman named, Daphne Monet, who liked to hang out in illegal clubs and bars. Did I mention Easy is an African American? What follows in a classic detective noir, similar to Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, is a hard boiled mystery with the additional depth of race. Like Hammett’s protagonist of Sam Spade or Chandler’s protagonist of Phillip Marlowe, Mosley’s protagonist is cool. I don’t mean he keeps his cool, he is cool. I mean I wish I was as cool as Easy’s middle finger, let alone having his persona.
Yet to be that cool, you have to have antagonists that are just as frightening. This book delivers with two real threats. Both of them are psychotic. The first is Dewitt Albright. The other is Easy’s former sidekick, known only as Mouse. You don’t mess with any of these two men. Easy will have to do just that to solve this mystery, while having the cops breathing down his neck. Chasing him because he is a man of color, and being at the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Another thing I love about the story is the prose. The prose needs to be read aloud. It is lovely. It is beat. It is poetry. It is the punctuations and rhythms of the streets. It is a West Coast novel. There is a coiled energy in the descriptions and the actions that Easy encounters. It is also an excellent mediation on race and gender in Los Angeles following post World War II.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I love books like this. Walter Mosley may have catapulted himself to one of my favorite writers. I have since checked out a second Easy Rawlins mystery, as well as a non mystery by the author. I quite enjoy his work.
Walter Mosley will be making an appearance at The Seattle Central Public Library (1000 Fourth Ave.) on October 10, 7:00PM to promote his new Easy Rawlins book “Blonde Faith”. Check his works out, and hear him speak.
Follow the link to find out more on Walter Mosley.