White Butterfly is the third published Easy Rawlins mystery novel, originally released in 1992. With it Walter Mosley proved he belonged in the top rank of genre authors as he combines a harsh who done it and the harsh reality of black life in 1950s America. Being white the depths of that reality are difficult to accept but I think that’s exactly the point. Frightening.
Rawlins is no detective but knows both sides of the tracks in Los Angeles so the police call on him to help solve a series of murders. The first three were black party girls and drew little official attention but the fourth, though found in the same bad part of town, is a white UCLA coed whose father is a local prosecutor. Now the cops are very attentive.
Our protagonist has his own problems to deal with, a growing void at the heart of his marriage, his eight year old adopted son still refuses to speak and some cutthroat real estate developers who want to cut themselves in on a block of land he owns. Yet he understands that the cops will hurt him, directly or through friends, if he doesn’t help catch the killer. Plus he can’t get the image of the third victim’s body out of his dreams.
Mosley is masterful in building his characters. Easy Rawlins, in his mid-30s as this story unfolds, rushes from fire to fire but always keeps his eye on what’s most important to him. He’s also the narrator of the story so we get to read his eloquent thoughts, quite frequently on how the color of his skin is factored into everything else. But Mosley does not tell a dreary tale, all complaints and hardships, his writing is powerfully emotional.
recommended
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