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.

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!

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, get paid, avoid being charged with murder and, perhaps most difficult, stay alive.

In Devil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley creates an attractive protagonist and effectively evokes a time and place (albeit one that likely never existed). In so doing he provides a scene in which the reader very much wants to be involved - gritty, smart, sexual. The narrative, however, goes little beyond evoking a background. We learn very little about Easy Rawlins and his associates. Indeed, we learn very little about the story we are told. The narrative could be effectively summarized in a few short pages and the material surrounding the plot oftentimes does nothing more than fill the space. Interesting? Yes. Satisfying? Unfortunately not.

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'.

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, whose flawed, proud, vulnerable persona is
represented with dignity and grace with Mosley's skilled
writing.

However, this is one of the few books where I was conflicted
about whether I liked the movie version or the book better.
I actually really enjoyed both. Other books in the series
that I enjoyed include Black Betty. I also really enjoyed
how you can pick up any book in the series and quickly pick
up on what's happening.

Highly recommended for all readers!

Mosley took detective fiction to a new level when this book was released. Not only is his storytelling every bit as gritty and hard boiled as classic detective fiction, but his subtle (and sometimes not so subtle!) social commentary provides a unique voice distinguishing Easy Rawlins from the many private [...] who have tread before him. Easy is a man with flaws, pressed into the business of gumshoeing due to his financial circumstances. Overall, he comes across as a real man, someone with problems people of all races can relate to. His experiences are as eye-opening as they are entertaining. Mosley also introduces us to one of the most cold-blooded characters in crime fiction, Raymond "Mouse" Alexander. Mouse is ruthless, without remorse at his violent lifestyle, driven only by his needs for money, women, and fine threads. Even his friends tread carefully around Mouse and it's only with the greatest of reservations that Easy enlists the aid of his dangerous friend. Mosley's dialog and description are superb and its amazing to think that this was his first novel. The Easy Rawlins mysteries would continue to get better, but there are enough plot twists and dangerous dames in this first installment to interest any mystery fan.

Walter Mosley wins half the battle of writing a good detective story by coming up with a unique, interesting protagonist. Easy Rawlins, a black man recently unemployed in post-War LA and desperate to make the payments on his little house, accepts the assignment to look for a white woman who frequents black nightclubs. He has access to a level of south LA society that white men do not, which makes his assistance invaluable to certain powerful individuals.

This first novel in the Easy Rawlins series succeeds for its portrayal of an inherently good man living in 1940s Los Angeles with all its racism, corruption, and opportunism. I hope Mosley's device of a voice that talks to Easy during times of stress is eliminated, or at least deemphasized, in future installments; it seems quite contrived. Although the violent criminal Mouse, an old friend from Easy's past, is a deftly drawn character, I hope our hero won't be so reliant on his help in the future. It makes sense in this first novel, when Easy is still getting his feet wet as an investigator, but the way Mouse swoops in from nowhere to rescue him at a couple points is too much of a deus ex machina.

Great character(EZ Rollins), good story, fine writing. It is, however, a wonder how EZ gets out of the house in the morning with a racist around every corner and two in every doorway. Perhaps pervasive racism was the environment in the LA of the forties, but it is one I can neither identify with or want to be part of. I don't think I will be accommodating EZ's reluctant career, no matter how fine the writing.

Easy Rawlins is an ex-military man looking to get by after the war. He loses his job, and is looking to do something else to pay the bills. He falls into a private investigator type of job, being asked to track down a white woman that likes to hang out in black clubs.

It is all not quite as simple as that of course. Time for some music, violence, and the other usual bits and pieces.

DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS is the first in Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" mysteries, featuring a black private detective in 1940s Los Angeles.

I enjoyed this novel quite a bit. DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS is incredibly well written for a first novel, and features some of the best dialogue I've ever read in a book of this type. Mosley does a great job of portraying the atmosphere of the 1940s, and how the races related to one another during that time period. In many ways, this is what great fiction is about -- transporting the reader to a completely different time and place. Mosley succeeds admirably in doing exactly this.

Unfortunately, Mosley stumbles a bit with his incredibly convoluted plot. DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS is a relatively short novel, but it's overstuffed with a series of minor characters who all have complex interrelationships with one another. Toward the end, when Mosley begins explaining these relationships, the plot gets incredibly confusing. As a result, I felt the ending lacked punch.

Still, this book is superb in many ways. I was enormously impressed with Mosley's skill with language, characterization and dialogue. I will definitely be purchasing some of his other books.

'Devil in a Blue Dress' has a oodles of atmosphere and quirky characters but the plot is so convoluted that this reader was bored with it all half way through. Kudos to the author for capturing the feel of 1940s Los Angeles. But I think he went a bit haywire in trying to stitch together a story with too many odd characters and mini plot twists,


Bottom line: rather disappointing after a promising start. 'Devil in a Blue Dress' does not inspire me to read anything else by this author.

Not sure why but I wasn't as taken with this novel as I have been with the other of his books. Don't get me wrong, this was a good book but it's wasn't up to his usual standards.

I read Devil in a Blue Dress in one sitting. Obviously, writer Jonathan Kellerman did too, because he later wrote, "I read Devil in a Blue Dress in one sitting and didn't want it to end. An astonishing first novel." Fortunately for Mosley fans, there are more Easy Rawlins mysteries. Devil in a Blue Dress remains my favorite. It's set in 1948 in Los Angeles. Easy Rawlins is a war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. (This is the role Denzel Washington plays in the movie.) Devil is much more than a hard-boiled mystery. The book left me wanting to read more about Easy Rawlins whereas many of the Hammett/Chandler/Cain novels are so formulaic that I have trouble remembering which ones I've read. Not a problem with Devil in a Blue Dress.

Devil In A Blue Dress is a beautiful book, with its Southern dialect and the change of the pace of Los Angeles's tough streets. Devil In A Blue Dress tells the story of Ekeziel 'Easy' Rawlins and his quest to pay his mortrage after he is fired from his job at a defense plant. The books explores the racial and gender segregation in post war America. It invites you, the reader, into a web of desire and intrigue.

This is the story of how Easy Rawlins, an unemployed black veteran, becomes a Los Angeles P.I. in 1948. "I'd ask the bartender his name and talk about anything, but, really, behind my friendly talk, I was working to find something. Nobody knew what I was up to and that made me sort of invisible; people thought they saw me but what they really saw was an illusion of me, something that wasn't real." Out of work, a friend recommends Easy to a white man who's looking to hire someone for a very special job--find a white girl who frequents the seedy bars and jazz clubs of black L.A. At first apprehensive, Easy takes the job and begins to learn, through trial and error, the detective trade. He gets good at it, but he's also in over his head when he encounters two people who are eventually murdered. His notoriously savage friend, Mouse, comes to his aid, and together they must discover the connection between a politician, rich man, pimp, and a gorgeous blond in a blue dress.

The noir atmosphere and the characterization of Easy are just right, but there are just too many minor characters, which ultimately confuse the story. Although the solution is a good one, it doesn't seem to fit with the excessive number of murders that occur. In fact, although rare, the movie, written by Carl Franklin, is actually much better. The changes to the plot make for a smoother, more satisfying finish. So I recommend you watch the movie.

Walter Mosley is one of the Great Contemporary American Writers, and he achieves this status from his reworking of a familiar genre - Raymond Chandler styled detective fiction - and giving it a fresh voice.

Easy Rawlins has the hallmarks of a Sam Spade, if you like, but he's an unwilling detective, a black man who just wants to get ahead in the promising environment of post-war Los Angeles. But he's thrown into a mystery that takes us, page-turningly, through the various strata of LA society and leads us both to a statisfying yet violent resolution of the whodunnit, while also taking us to a place of deeper understanding.

In fact Mosley's series of Easy Rawlins stories that follow this excellent novel maintain the high quality of suspense writing while tracing a credible, thoughtful post-war social history of modern USA, as seen through the astute and increasingly wary eyes of Rawlins. The series is great reading, and while Mosley uses the suspense genre to tell a deeper story he always writes with wry humour, deep passion, an eye for the ladies and a twitchy attitude to violence as part of life. His invention of Raymond "Mouse" as Rawlin's disturbingly trigger-happy friend from Texas keeps the plotting always one step from catastrophe.

This is one novel, incidentally, where the film version is every bit as good. Denzel Washington captures Easy Rawlins just perfectly, and the film direction is quite superb.

This book was our introduction to Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins. It is quickly paced and very complex in a bare bones kind of way. Mosley takes us into a Los Angeles after the war we rarely see, as Easy becomes a private eye of sorts to find a blonde Frenchwoman named Daphne Monet. Daphne likes black men and haunts the world of dusty underground bars and hole in the wall jazz joints Easy knows all too well.

A white man Easy doesn't quite trust is willing to pay a hefty sum to find her. But finding her may not be Easy's only problem as someone is out to kill him before he can finish the job. Easy calls on his old friend, Mouse, an amoral and extremely dangerous product of the world he lives in. Mouse is deadly as an enemy and even dangerous as a friend. Both Easy and Mouse are sharply drawn characters which are sort of a grittier 1940's version of Robert B. Parker's Spenser and Hawk.

Easy is a decent man who understands his world and environment but finds no justice and little pleasure in it. He is one of the great characters in American detective fiction, on a par with Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer. Like Archer, Easy seems more comfortable as an observer of human cruelty and frailty than a participant. His attraction to the beautiful white girl when he finally tracks her down is in conflict with his uneasiness about what is really going on here. A trail of money will lead Easy to a murder. Those expecting him to fail, may have underestimated Easy by a long margin.

Mosley's story is about a good man in a not so good world. Easy tries to detatch himself from the world he inhabits, but discovers it is part of who he is. Mosley's secondary character, Mouse, is equally unforgettable. Mouse does not hold the same illusions about his world that Easy does and chooses to exist within it while living by his own rules.

Daphne has more to hide in this novel than just money, and what she is hiding is the impetus for everything that happens. The plot is about greed and murder, but it is sorrow that is at the heart of this story. Being a black man in post WWII Los Angeles, sorrow is an old friend to Ezekiel.

This is a fine read and a perfect introduction to Easy Rawlins, one of the great characters in American detective fiction. You will fall in love with this book and the depth that lies just beneath the surface. It is a fast read and comes highly recommended.

I had seen the movie with Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle years ago, but when I had to read Six Easy Pieces for a paper I had to write, I instantly wanted to read Devil in Blue Dress to see where it all began for Easy Rawlins. Knowing the story from the movie distracted me a little and I found myself comparing the movie to the book. Some people say books are always better but having read some of Mosley's later works (Crimson Stain, Gray-Eyed Death, Lavender, etc), I saw some flaws in Devil/Dress that could have been cleaned up a little better, and were fixed in the movie adaptation. Also, I had recently taken a Fiction Writing class, so I was instinctively looking for holes in the plot. I'm glad to say that there were not a ton of holes to be found.
This is a good book that I would recommend to anyone. Mosley uses various scene changes to create the world in which Rawlins lives and operates. In this book and the stories in Six Easy Pieces, setting become a character in and of itself.
Good job Mosley. People, go out and read this book.

I enjoyed this book. I feel that Walter Mosely is a unique voice in crime fiction. I look forward to reading more of his works when I have time.

"Devil in a Blue Dress" takes the reader to post-War Los Angeles, a city burgeoning with new industry and opportunity in 1948. The hero is Ezekiel "Easy" Rollins, a war veteran who came to L.A. for sunshine and good jobs, but now finds himself laid off and in danger of losing his home. A friend introduces him to a sleazy character named DeWitt Albright, who offers Easy the opportunity to make some money fast. Albright is looking for a woman named Daphne Monet. In a city that is largely socially segregated, Miss Monet, who is white, frequents black night clubs and has black friends -some of the same clubs and friends as Easy. Whether in desperation or out of pride, Easy accepts the job and sets out to find her. His search takes him on a tour of the city's shadows: underground jazz clubs, bootleggers and blackmailers, political corruption, and finally to the irresistible and mysterious Daphne Monet.

"Devil in a Blue Dress" is a pleasant, brisk read. Walter Mosley paints a colorful and intriguing picture of post-War Los Angeles. And his prose effectively expresses the fear and temptation that constantly compete for Easy Rollins' psyche. Easy Rollins is a working class detective who is lent a certain romanticism and distinction by the time and place in which the novel is set. This combination of qualities make Easy an ideal detective novel protagonist who will appeal to a wide array of readers. The character of Daphne Monet is less than believable, I'm afraid. But it is more essential that she be sexy and mysterious than that she be believed, so it is not a serious flaw. "Devil in a Blue Dress" has a little of everything -a likable hero, period ambiance, hard-boiled dialogue, sex, violence, mystery- without losing its focus. It won't appeal to fans of "cozies ", but most mystery buffs will find something enjoyable in it.

I read this particular novel in about a week and at first it seemed slow, but towards the middle part of the book my interest started to peak. The protagonist Easy Rawlins a fired aircraft worker and WWII veteran gets pulled into a world of deceit by a person he perceives to be a good friend. Easy is hired to look for a woman by the name of Daphne Monet, but everyone he comes in contact with that could possible help him is murdered. Finally Easy starts putting the pieces of the puzzle together with his long time friend Mouse and in the end everything makes sense. The books tangles a serious web of deception which is rather interesting. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.

Easy Rawlins is not the typical private detective, but he is the freshest one to come around in a long time. Easy is an African American WWII veteran from Texas, now living in 1948 L.A. where he proudly owns a modest home. The home is all he has to be proud of since he got fired from his job at a defense plant. Life for Easy is not easy at all. Then one day, a white man dressed in a white suit offers Easy good money to locate a beautiful blonde known to hang out at black clubs. For a man with a mortgage and no money coming in, the offer is too good to be true. But then offers like this usually are.

The plot sounds typical, but Mosley's writing is anything but. Mosley paints a clear and atmospheric picture of racial segregation in post-war L.A., but that picture is not overexposed. Easy not only has to endure the dangers of finding this girl, he must do it in a hostile background where white policemen and higher-ups look for any type of crime that they might pin on him. The story of the transplanted man from the south living on the west coast is not unfamiliar, but making him a black man facing prejudice on every side makes the story more alive and the plot more tension-filled. Again, this is not done in a heavy-handed way, but with a subtle touch that makes you want to turn the pages.

Mosley is very much at home with the hard-boiled style of crime noir and it shows on every page. This is not a Hammett or Chandler re-hash. This is a fresh, lively, exciting mystery from a very fine writer. If you haven't experienced Mosley and Easy Rawlins, pick up the Blue Dress and try it on for size.

215 pages