This poem
examines the book "Devil in a Blue Dress," by Walter Mosley which is classed as a Black crime novel and is the
first in an entire series of books about its protagonist, Easy Rawlins, a detective facing racism in his work and in local
politics in 1940s LA. It
examines the characters and the plot twists and turns with things the reader does not expect. It shows how Mosley has a talent for writing compelling descriptions of his people and their surroundings and how he brings Southern California in the 1940s vividly to life, from the fruit groves to the sunshine, to the prejudices and the bleak racial relations that marked the country before the Civil Rights movement.