★★★☆☆ A blacker shade of Noir

White Butterfly

Walter Mosley

White Butterfly is the third novel in Walter Mosley's classic Easy Rawlins mystery series. While the first two, Devil in a Blue Dress and A Red Death are brilliant expositions of life for a black man in 1950s Los Angeles, they are, to be completely frank, not great story-telling. (It should go without saying that I'm expressing personal opinions, and that yours may differ. It should go without saying, but it doesn't always, so there, I just said it.) There's just too much going on, too many characters. As mysteries, they failed for me, because I could barely follow the story.

White Butterfly is better. The story was engaging, comparatively straightforward, and there was even a good plot twist near the end that took me by surprise. I've been reading fiction for 65 years, so a plot twist that takes me by surprise is an unusual achievement.

As detective fiction, Easy Rawlins reminds me most of Noir, such old-time classics as Dashiell Hammett or more modern incarnations like Harry Bosch or even The Wire. Everyone is dirty -- even the good guys can't stay clean.

In Easy Rawlins, however, a particular kind of dirt predominates: it's mostly about the evil white folks do to blacks. White Butterfly begins with a serial killer killing one black girl after another. The police don't really care much about it, until a white girl is killed. Then, suddenly, it's All Hands on Deck, and Easy is expected to pull some mighty big rabbits out of his hat, real quick.

The bad action is not all white on black. Black folks struggling to survive are dirty, too. What's more, Easy comes to realize that white folks are also doing it to themselves.

Somebody might not believe what happened to me. They might say that a prisoner in America always knows the specific crime of which he is accused. They might say that a man has a right to good counsel and at least a phone call.
At one time I would have said that white people had those rights but colored ones didn’t. But as time went by I came to understand that we’re all just one step away from an anonymous grave. You don’t have to live in a communist country to be assassinated; just ask J. T. Saunders about that.
The police could come to your house today and drag you from your bed. They could beat you until you swallow teeth and they can lock you in a hole for months.

Grim! White Butterfly is the best yet of the Easy Rawlins mystery series. I plan to continue reading.

White Butterfly on Amazon

Goodreads review

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