Thoughts at the halfway point of Devil in a Blue Dress

Apologies for the crime theme but this book came through as part of the Serpent's Tail Classics range being launched early next month and it just screamed 'Read me Now!'. Mind you having said that unfortunately so do quite a few books at the moment!

Anyway here are the thoughts at the half way stage:

The prose reminds you of Raymond Chandler, the background has the feeling of other pulp post-war gangster novels but the angle here is completely different.

Through the lead character Easy Rawlins, a black man who has traveled to LA to escape Houston and the South, Mosley takes the reader into a world that none of Chandler's character's would have been able to go into with such confidence.

LA becomes a city of crooks, drinking dens and rough pool halls but all within the black community. So when a white man comes calling asking for someone to help him track down a woman with a French name and a rich boyfriend Easy is given the job.

Easy finds things getting more and more complicated as he navigates through a world where he is not only facing trouble from his own community but also the police. Finding the woman proves to be fairly straightforward but after that it becomes a more serious game of trying to keep his own life.

A review will follow soon...