| Devil in a Blue Dress | |
| Author: | Walter Mosley |
| Genre: | Hardboiled mystery |
| Publisher: | Norton |
| Pub Date: | 1990 |
| Pages: | 219 pp. |
| Isbn: | 978-0-393-02854-6 |
| Oclc: | 20562157 |
Devil in a Blue Dress is a 1990 hardboiled mystery novel by Walter Mosley, his first published book.The text centers on the main character, Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, and his transformation from a day laborer into a detective.
Set in 1948, the story begins in the Watts area of Los Angeles, with Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, a Houstonian — from that city's Fifth Ward — who lost his job at an aviation defense plant in Los Angeles and is unable to pay the mortgage on his LA home. Easy is sitting in a bar run by Joppy, a friend who is also from Houston, when a man named DeWitt Albright walks into the bar and offers him a job finding a young White woman named Daphne Monet, who is rumored to be hanging out in bars frequented mostly by African Americans, but where White women are allowed inside.
At the bar, Easy meets two old friends, Coretta and Dupree, among many other people that he knew from his former life in Houston. Coretta says that she knows Daphne, but gives an incorrect address to Easy. He goes home with them and has sex with Coretta while Dupree is asleep in the next room. Easy then leaves her early the next morning, only to be arrested by the LAPD. Shortly thereafter, following police interrogation, Easy is told that Coretta is dead, and that he is a suspect in her murder.
When Easy finally does find Monet, he figures out that she has stolen a large amount of money from a man named Todd Carter, who is a local wealthy businessman. Albright wanted this money for himself. Eventually, Albright finds Monet through Easy, who is trying to shield the thieving woman.
Easy enlists the help of a friend and fellow Houstonian, Mouse, who shows up due to a half-hearted invitation from Easy and domestic strife back home. Easy and Mouse find Monet with Albright and Joppy, who was revealed to have killed Coretta and Howard Green, someone who had been previously beaten to death. They rescue her and kill Joppy and Albright. Then Mouse reveals that Monet is actually Ruby, an African-American woman passing as White, and the sister of a local gangster named Frank Green. Mouse and Easy blackmail Ruby, taking her money and dividing it into thirds for each of them. Daphne/Ruby leaves shortly thereafter, and Easy has to clean up the mess with the police as well as Carter, who had initially hired Albright to find her, since he really did love her and not his money.
Easy approaches Carter and requests his help with the police. He blackmails him by saying that he will leak the information about his love for a Black woman unless he is protected from the law. Carter helps him. At the conclusion, Mouse returns to Houston, Easy takes up detective work, and Ruby disappears.[1]
The novel is an important contribution to African-American and ethnic detective fiction in that it focuses on a black protagonist who falls into the role of detective, but by the series' end, has made both the profession and the identity that often comes along with it his own. Particularly noteworthy are Easy's use of African-American English and the emergence of "the Voice" (an inner voice that advises Easy during particularly stressful or dangerous situations).[2] Literary scholars of ethnic detective fiction have explored these qualities by means of genre study and gender identity[3] approaches.
First published by W.W. Norton in 1990,[4] Devil In a Blue Dress won the 1991 Shamus Award in the category of "Best First P. I. Novel".[5]
Devil In a Blue Dress was adapted into a 1995 film of the same name, which starred Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins, and also featured Jennifer Beals, Tom Sizemore, Maury Chaykin, as well as Don Cheadle as the unhinged "Mouse".[6]
In 1996, a 10-part abridgement by Margaret Busby, read by Paul Winfield, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, starting on April 1.[7]