posted on 28 Aug 2025

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

First published in 1990, Devil in a Blue Dress is a mix of hard-boiled private-dick thriller and a commentary on the nature of racial discrimination in the U.S.A. Set in the Los Angeles 1948, we are also introduced for the first time to Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins – who will become Mosley’s central character in a number of later novels.

The book opens with Rawlins in a bar lamenting the fact that he’s just lost his job for arguing with the boss about his working hours and now stands to lose the house he’s worked so hard to buy unless he can meet the mortgage payments. His friend, the bartender, Joppy, offers to introduce his to a white man who can offer him a one-off job that might solve his immediate problems. This turns out to be a scary and intimidating gangster called DeWitt Albright who wants Easy to find a white woman called Daphne Monet, who spends time in predominantly black bars. There will be a fee that will give Easy the chance to, maybe, get his old job back and end his immediate financial worries.

Despite the fact that Rawlins smells trouble, he agrees to the deal and this is a decision that will not only put him in constant danger but which will ultimately bring him into contact with Daphne – the devil in a blue dress of the title – and find him being fitted up by the police for a bum murder rap.

This isn’t the kind of book where you’re going to want me to tell you any more of the plot because it will entirely spoil the labyrinth that you have to navigate your way around as the plot unfolds. Much of the enjoyment of the book revolves around the character of Easy Rawlins who is our narrator throughout – and he’s something of a triumph. Intelligent, well aware of the issues facing black people in society at this time, brave but not insanely reckless and (and this is key) morally centred without being an angel.

We also get to meet an array of characters from within the black community that are vividly drawn and again there’s a warts-and-all feel about them – schooled in how to survive but also schooled in treachery if it will further their cause. Tempers are often unpredictable – and this is especially true of the man who is both the bane of Easy’s life and also his saviour, Mouse, who is a friend from his earlier life in Houston.

The dangerously seductive Daphne is also a complex character with a backstory that touches on the ambiguities of racial identity and it is ultimately Easy’s involvement with her that will convince him that his future life lies in the world of the private detective business.

There are undoubtedly echoes in Mosley’s novel of the likely influences on him – I would suggest Chandler and James Lee Burke are most certainly there in the mix. But for a breakthrough novel I think this is a terrific read and an assured piece of writing that will have you gripped.

Easily available in paperback, you should be able to get a copy for well under £10.

 

Terry Potter

August 2025