Having chronicled Easy's adventures from the '40s to the '60s, Mosley jumps back in time to when easy and Mouse were 19 year olds on the threshhold of manhood.  Mouse is about to marry Etta Mae & wants to bring a dowry to the marriage.  He decides to go ask his stepfather for some money & things don't work out real well.

This series has been consistently excellent & it's fun to see the characters as young men.

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (B) Orrin C. Judd

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Walter Mosley Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Walter Mosely
    -AUTHOR SITE: WalterMosely.com
    -FILMOGRAPHY: Walter Mosely (IMDB)
    -FEATURED AUTHOR: Walter Mosely (NY Times)
    -ENTRY: Walter Mosely (African American Literature Book Club)
    -ENTRY: Walter Mosley American author (Encyclopedia Britannica)
    -ENTRY: Moseley, Walter 1952- (Encyclopedia.com)
    -ENTRY: Easy Rawlins (Thrilling Detective)
    -ESSAY: There is no "white" race (Walter Mosely, July 9, 2014, CBS News)
    -ESSAY: Walter Mosley on Obama: 'He was like a surgeon given a rusty scalpel' (Walter Mosley, 13 Oct 2012, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: 10,000 years of history run in my veins (Walter Mosley, March 31, 2010, CNN)
    -REVIEW: of CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier by Katie Hafner and John Markoff (Walter Mosely, NY Times Book Review)
    -BOOKNOTES: Workin' on the Chain Gang: Shaking Off the Dead Hand of History (C-SPAN, 11/16/2010)
    -AUDIO INTERVIEW: Mystery Writer Walter Mosley Discusses "Black Betty." (Fresh Air, 5/25/1994)
    -PROFILE: Mystery Stories Are Novelist's Route To Moral Questions (D. J. R. BRUCKNER, 9/04/1990, NY Times Book Review)
    -PROFILE: AT DINNER WITH: Walter Mosley; Heroes in Black, Not White (SARAH LYALL, 6/15/1994, NY Times Book Review)
    -PROFILE: The Curious Case of Walter Mosley (JOHANNA NEUMAN, NOV 30, 2011, Moment)
    -PROFILE: Socrates of the streets : Raised in South Central LA, Walter Mosley dropped out of college and worked in computers. After taking a writing course, he penned a series of best-selling mysteries which drew plaudits from Bill Clinton. But his new book, a critique of the US war on terror, finds little favour among America's current political establishment. (Maya Jaggi, 5 Sep 2003, The Guardian)
    -INTERVIEW: Walter Mosley, Uneasy Street (Powell’s Books)
    -INTERVIEW: Walter Mosley: 'Donald Trump is a lazy, spoilt guy': As his latest detective novel drops, the writer muses on Obama, the Clintons, and how his own father is like his celebrated protagonist, Easy Rawlins (Alexander Bisley, Jul 2016, The Guardian)
    -BOOK PAGE: Black Betty (Simon & Schiuster)
    -AUDIO: Black Betty by Walter Mosely (Audible/YouTube)
    -STUDY GUIDE: Black Betty (Felicita Burton, Ph.D., eNotes)
    -BBC RADIO PLAY: Black Betty
    -ARTICLE: Author Walter Mosley Quits ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ After Using N-Word in Writers Room: Author Walter Mosley penned an op-ed for The New York Times, published on Friday, in which he revealed that he quit as a writer on a television series after he was "chastised" by HR for using the N-word on the job. Though, in the piece, Mosley didn't mention which show he left, The Hollywood Reporter can confirm that it was 'Star Trek: Discovery.' (LESLEY GOLDBERG, EVAN REAL, SEPTEMBER 6, 2019, Hollywood Reporter)
    -ESSAY: A Darker Shade of Noir (Robert Christgau, 5/08/06, The Nation)

Though the literary novels get respect, Mosley's reputation rests mostly on the Rawlins books, as it should. Starting in 1948 and proceeding by multiyear leaps to 1961, Devil in a Blue Dress, A Red Death, White Butterfly and Black Betty chronicle a Los Angeles in which the artificial boundaries of de facto segregation are transgressed in disastrous secrecy. In four narrowly spaced subsequent novels, that secrecy starts to dissipate. These eight historically evolving books constitute the finest detective oeuvre in American literature, surpassing even that of card-carrying formalist Hammett and dwarfing Chandler and Leonard and Macdonald. Even to an old-fashioned English major with an atavistic craving for greatness in fiction, they're pretty great, applying quick, meaty prose to plots rich in cultural and social detail.

    -REVIEW ESSAY: A Grand Contrivance: Together, the Easy Rawlins mysteries constitute a sprawling novel of manners about black Los Angeles in the mid twentieth century (David L. Ulin, JULY/AUGUST 2002, The Atlantic)
    -ESSAY: Mysteries of Walter Mosely)
    -EXCERPT: Identity Politics: the Private Eye (“I”) in Walter Mosley’s Detective Fiction (Alison D. Goeller, Polar Noir)
    -ESSAY: Power and Knowledge in Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress (Marilyn C. Wesley, Spring 2001, African American Review)
    -ESSAY: AUTOMOBILITIES IN WALTER MOSLEY’S DETECTIVE FICTION ON FILM (Judith A. Nicholson, 9/25/23, Mediapolis)
    -ESSAY: Walter Mosley, Natural Language, and Empathy Joshua Isard, (1/09/23, , Lit Reactor)
    -
    -ARCHIVES: Walter Mosely (The Guardian)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVES: Walter Mosely (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Black Betty by Walter Mosely (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Black Betty (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Black Betty (Barry Gifford, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Black Betty (Lost Flag)
    -REVIEW: of Black Betty (The View from the Blue House)
    -REVIEW: of Gone Fishin’ (Reginald W. Major, The Black Scholar)
    -REVIEW: of Farewell, Amethystine by Walter Mosely (E.A. Aymar, Washington Post)
    -REVIEW: of America, Fortunate Son by Walter Mosely (Michael Moorcock, The Guardian)

ORIGINAL LINKS:
    -AUTHOR SITE: Walter Mosley (Time Warner Book Group)
    -ESSAY: WALTER MOSLEY ON TA-NEHISI COATES'S BLACK PANTHER: A NATION UNDER OUR FEET: "This permission to imagine, I believe, is the gift of all comics but T’Challa, the Black Panther, was a special gift to many young black people. Rather than a creation for us, it was a manifestation of our underlying dreams." (WALTER MOSLEY, 11/29/22, CrimeReads)
    -
    -INTERVIEW: Walter Mosley, The Art of Fiction No. 234 (Interviewed by Thomas Gebremedhin, Spring 2017, Paris Review)
    -EXCERPT: from The Wave by Walter Mosley
    -FEATURED AUTHOR : Walter Mosley (NY Times Book Review)
    -BOOKNOTES : Author : Walter Mosley Title : Workin' on the Chain Gang: Shaking Off the Dead Hand of History. (C-SPAN)
    -REVIEW: of TWO CITIES By John Edgar Wideman (Walter Mosley, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of FUGITIVE NIGHTS by Joseph Wambaugh (Walter Mosley, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of CYBERPUNK Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier. By Katie Hafner and John Markoff (Walter Mosley, NY Times Book Review)
    -ESSAY: Writers on Writing series, Walter Mosley talks about the first important lesson the writer must learn: "Writing a novel is gathering smoke." (NY Times Book Review)
    -INTERVIEW : Working on the Chain Gang : Walter Mosley examines what a world without consumer capitalism might look like (Online Newshour, PBS)
    -ESSAY : Power and Knowledge in Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress (Marilyn C.  Wesley, African American Review, March 22 2001)
    -INTERVIEW: Walter Mosley, The Art of Fiction No. 234 (Interviewed by Thomas GebremedhinISSUE 220, SPRING 2017, Paris Review)
    -PROFILE: Socrates of the streets: Raised in South Central LA, Walter Mosley dropped out of college and worked in computers. After taking a writing course, he penned a series of best-selling mysteries which drew plaudits from Bill Clinton. But his new book, a critique of the US war on terror, finds little favour among America's current political establishment. (Maya Jaggi, September 6, 2003, The Guardian)
    -PROFILE: Black male authors: smart, sexy & successful (Nikitta A. Foston, Dec 2002, Ebony)
   
    -ARCHIVES: "walter mosley" (Find Articles)
    -REVIEW: of The Wave by Walter Mosley (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (Herbert Mitgang, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (Marilyn Stasio, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of A Red Death by Walter Mosley (Herbert Mitgang, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of White Butterfly by Walter Mosley (Herbert Mitgang, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Black Betty by Walter Mosley (Barry Gifford, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of RL'S DREAM By Walter Mosley (Gary Giddins, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of ALWAYS OUTNUMBERED, ALWAYS OUTGUNNED By Walter Mosley (Richard Bernstein, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of ALWAYS OUTNUMBERED, ALWAYS OUTGUNNED By Walter Mosley (Sven Birkets, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Blue Light by Walter Mosley (Nicholas Blincoe, The Observer)
    -REVIEW: of Blue Light by Walter Mosley (Mel Watkins, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Walkin' the Dog by Walter Mosley (Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Walkin' the Dog by Walter Mosley (Adam Goodheart, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley (Richard Bernstein, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley (Jesse Berrett, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Futureland by Walter Mosley (NIKKI DILLON, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosley (Marilyn Stasio, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Bad Boy Brawly Brown by Walter Mosley (Janet Maslin, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Fear Itself by Walter Mosley (Marilyn Stasio, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Little Scarlet by Walter Mosley (Duncan Campbell, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of Little Scarlet (Tatiana Siegel, USA Today)
    -REVIEW: of Little Scarlet (Valerie Wilson Wesley, Essence)
    -REVIEW: of Little Scarlet (Marilyn Stasio, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley (Marilyn Stasio, NY Times)
    -REVIEW: of The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley (Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian)
    -REVIEW: of The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley (Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, Crisis)
    -REVIEW: of The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley (Robert MacFarlane, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley (Janet Maslin, NY Times)
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    -INTERVIEW: The 1990s Denzel Mystery That Should’ve Launched a Franchise: An interview with writer–director Carl Franklin as Devil in a Blue Dress joins the Criterion Collection. (DAN KOIS, JULY 22, 2022, Slate)

Book-related and General Links: