White Butterfly

It's been quite a while since I've read an Easy Rawlins mystery by Walter Mosley. White Butterfly is the third in the series, and also the third I've read. The first two were Devil in a Blue Dress (which I thought made an unfairly overlooked film in 1995) and Red Death.

Rawlins is a black man living in post-World War II Los Angeles. He is something of a private investigator, turned to by those who can't go where he can. This novel is set in 1956, and Rawlins is married with a baby. He also happens to own a lot of land, but keeps that fact hidden, even from his wife.

Mosley's books follow the template of classic private-eye fiction, but of course with a twist, that is we see the lives led in the shadows by a beaten down minority. Rawlins is always aware he's a black man in a white world, and feels the pain and sees on it the faces of others. In the books opening passage he crystallizes it: "Defeat goes down hard with black people; it's our most common foe."

A serial killer has struck several times in the black community, killing good-time girls. It's only when a white girl is murdered that the police snap into action. One of the few black detectives on the force approaches Rawlins and asks for his help. Quickly he finds that the girl, who is mentioned in the papers as a UCLA co-ed, in fact has a much more sordid past.

White Butterfly, like the other two I've read, are immensely satisfying. They are mysteries, yes, but also effective literature, and some of the best writing about what it was like for a race of people to be beaten down. When Rawlins is arrested at one point in the book, he knows the drill, knows there is nothing he can do to stop it, and does his best to survive.

I see on Mosley's Wikipedia page that I've got a lot of catching up to do, as several more Rawlins mysteries have been written, which take him up to the Watts riots in 1967. I've got to add them to my Amazon wish list.