Books : Devil in a Blue Dress (Easy Rawlins Mysteries)
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In association with Amazon.com
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by: Walter Mosley
List Price: $14.00Amazon.com's Price: $11.90 You Save: $2.10 (15%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780743451796
ISBN: 0743451791
Label: Washington Square Press
Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: September 17, 2002
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Sales Rank: 33045
Studio: Washington Square Press
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs....
Amazon.com Review:
Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins has few illusions about the world--at least not about the world of a young black veteran in the late 1940s in Southern California. His stint in the Army didn't do anything to dissuade him from his belief that justice doesn't come cheap, especially for men like him. 'I thought there might be some justice for a black man if he had money to grease it,' Easy says. Fired from his job on the line at an aircraft plant, he's in danger of losing his home, symbol of his tenuous hold on middle class status. That's a good enough reason to accept a white man's offer to pay him for finding a beautiful, mysterious Frenchwoman named Daphne Monet, last seen in the company of a well-known gangster. Easy's search takes the reader to an L.A. few writers have shown us before--the mean streets of South Central, the after-hours joints in dirty basement clubs, the cheap hotels and furnished rooms, the places people go when they don't want to be found. Evocative of a past time, and told in a style that's reminiscent of Hammet and Chandler, yet uniquely his own, Mosley's depiction of an inherently decent man in a violent world of intrigue and corruption rang up big sales when it was published in 1990 (although the movie version, with Denzel Washington as Easy, never found the audience it deserved). The minor characters are deftly and brilliantly developed, especially Mouse, who saves Easy's life even as he draws him deeper into the mystery of Daphne Monet. Like many of Mosley's characters, Mouse makes a return appearance in the succeeding Easy Rawlins mysteries, such as A Red Death, Black Betty, and White Butterfly, every one of which is as good as Devil in a Blue Dress, his first. --Jane Adams
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Outstanding
I ran into this book by chance at a Salvation Army store. I buy a lot of books there and do not finish many. At twenty-five cents a book, it is not a big gamble. This book is worth the retail price.
As others reviewers will tell you, it is set in the post-war 1940s in black Los Angeles. It rings true and holds your interest. The environment it describes is thankfully gone. So are the "black and tan" clubs that I used to frequent in the 60s, again thankfully gone.
Rating: - AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!
Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue dress is a gripping, amazing story that I fell in love with. I love Easy (the main character). I love the setting for the story, I love the time era and the heart wrenching topics that Mr. Mosley's put forth in this story. THis book as pushed me to start to read other books of Walter Mosley's, especially more in the Series of Easy Rowalnds!
Rating:  - Promising but Not Entirely Satisfying
Unemployed and days away from losing his hard won house, Easy Rawlins takes a job he knows better than to get involved with. It sounds easy enough, look around some local black nightspots for a girl on the lam. Rawlins knows, though, that more is going on than he's being told. Shortly after asking his first questions in his investigation, Rawlins is dragged in by the police - turns out some of his recent contacts have been murdered. Rawlins has few friends and his wits to help him find the woman, ... Read More
Rating: - I did not like the protagonist
It is nicely written with a neat puzzle but I did not like any of the characters. I did sympathize but could not really care so it was a quick scan rather than a real 'read'.
Rating: - mosley's masterpiece
I loved this book! It's one of my all-time favorite books.
Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins is a detective looking for
a missing woman amid an assortment of sleazy, believable
and odd characters in 1948 Los Angeles. Mosley really
knows how to get the feel for the time period without
boggling down the reader with too many details.
I also loved how Mosley was able to use minor characters
without taking away too much from the protagonist, Easy
Rawlins, ... Read More
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