Devil in a blue dress by walter mosley5/22/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() But now the gates of prejudice are rolling back up, even in so-called paradise. It’s 1948, and Easy (born Ezekiel) Rawlins is home from World War II, where he fought alongside white, Japanese, and other Americans at the Battle of Normandy. So much seethes in that one line: the easiness of its tone and the unease of its content the segregation of the times and the arrival of something new. ![]() Mosley was 38, it was his first published novel, and, carried by Easy’s warm, skeptical, brilliant voice, Devil launched one of the best hard-boiled mystery series of the 20th century. That’s how Mosley introduced us to Easy Rawlins 30 years ago in Devil in a Blue Dress. “I was surprised to see a white man walk into Joppy’s bar.” American literature features some killer first lines, and here’s why Walter Mosley belongs right up there with the best spinners of them, from Toni Morrison to F. ![]()
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