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Re-reading THE DEVIL IN THE BLUE DRESS II

I have only re-read one book before, THE GREAT GATSBY. Which is strange because I have also listened to the audio book on a cross-country drive with Mrs. Hungry Detective when we moved to California. Anyway, I am just about half way through on my re-read THE DEVIL IN THE BLUE DRESS. 

It should not have come as a great surprise to me just how assured the prose is. The spartan directness of Walter Mosely's writing is so, so good. There is very little fat in those first 128 pages. Even, Mr. Mosely's asides about Eazy's life, and sidetracks about the other characters are brief and pointed.

What I didn't recall was the depth and darkness of the racism that Mr. Mosley details. I remember the racist cops, but otherwise I remember the other white characters being more benignly dismissive of Easy, treating him more as second class citizens. Of course that is its own kind of racism, but as a 17-18 year old at the time I did not see it for what that was. Those opening chapters are brutal. Every moment, every interaction, every character for Easy is about surviving.

I also didn't recall Easy's reluctance to call upon his friend Mouse.  Mouse becomes a fixture in the later book books but here Mouse is used as a kind of demon or Golem for the story and Easy. As a bringer of Doom, Mr. Mosely knew how to set Raymond Alexander up as a specter of death.

Current Read: Firewatching - Russ Thomas
To Be Read Pile - 7
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