I often claim to be an amateur sleuth, especially when it comes to PBS Masterpiece Mysteries. Yet, surprisingly, detective novels aren’t my preferred genre.
After reading a series of selections with heavier themes, I needed something different. Not necessarily a palate cleanser. Just something to awaken those brain centers that often lie dormant.
Detective novels are cool because the reader has the option of being purely an observer, watching the professional at work, as the puzzle pieces slowly fall into place.
Or…
If you’re anything like me (an amateur sleuth,) the reading experience can be an interactive one. Time-stamping events, cataloging evidence, mentally filing away statements and testimonies.
“That one guy at the bar did seem rather jittery.”
All of this to say, reading is fun, especially when you mix it up every now and then.
I figured if I was going to read a mystery/detective novel, I better go with a classic. Devil In A Blue Dress by Walter Mosley was the perfect choice.
Easy Rawlins is in a tough spot. He lost his job and the bills are due. He needs money. He needs it fast. And desperation can lead to dangerous choices.
Enter into the picture, a man in a white linen suit, offering a job and a lot of money to do it. It would be foolhardy to turn him down.
All Easy has to do is locate a mysterious blonde by the name of Daphne Monet. A white woman known around town for frequenting black jazz clubs. And if that’s the case, she shouldn’t be hard to find.
But in spite of his name, nothing comes easily for Easy Rawlins.
Motivated by curiosity and empty pockets, Easy’s “assignment” leads him into the dark and seedy undercurrent of 1940’s Los Angeles.
He’ll encounter nefarious characters. Knives out and guns a-blazing.
Easy thought that leaving the South for California would afford him greater opportunities. In some respects, it has. He owns a home-a point of pride.
But even in LA, racism is served up with a heavy hand. And a Black man on the lookout for a White woman, creates more than its share of troubles.
Easy is a smart and savvy man. And he’s going to need all of those smarts and all that savviness to make it out of this job alive.
A great read. A true page-turner.
If you’re a fan of mysteries, check out these other reviews by clicking the link below.
https://booksandbevs7.blog/2022/11/09/book-review-time-whose-body/
https://booksandbevs7.blog/2022/05/22/book-review-time-dial-a-for-aunties/
~G