Devil in a Blue Dress, by Walter Mosley

‘A first novel of astonishing virtuosity, upending Chandler's LA to show a dark side of a different kind' Sunday Times

Mosley promises to manipulate the genre to accommodate a genuinely original vision - a hidden history of life in black LA from the Forties to the Eighties' The Face

There is a splendid freshness to Mosley's prose and we sense that here is a real world we are hearing about for the first time' Financial Times

For a writer who has the legacy of Chester Himes and more to live up to, Walter Mosley makes a distinctly confident start to his career' Time Out

What really makes this novel is the writing - great stuff' i-D

The time is 1948. The town is Los Angeles. The hero is Easy Rawlins, an out of work black war veteran. The mortgage payment's coming due, so Easy accepts the assignment of finding Daphne Monet, blonde torch singer.

In his search through a sleazy, fearful city, he is lucky to be under the protection of the murderous Mouse.

Published in 1991, The Devil in a Blue Dress was awarded the John Creasey Award for the best first crime novel of the year. It immediately established Walter Mosley as one of the great contemporary American writers.