My friends, this is why I review. Because some day, in a mere ten years, I'm going to innocently pick up this book and think, "hey, I should give this a try." About twenty pages in, I realized I had already read White Butterfly. I peeked at the resolution, and sure enough, I was right. Although, quite honestly, I'm glad of the chance to read it again, to linger on Mosley's language and characters. This was prickly period perfection.White Butterfly is set in a middle chapter in Easy's life; his little house is now filled with a wife, Regina, and new baby, Edna. Little Jesus is now living with them, still silent, but with growing independence. It all starts when one of L.A.'s few black detectives drops by Easy's house looking for help in a case where black female bar girls are being murdered: "Quinten was a brown man but there was a lot of red under the skin. It was almost as if he were rage-colored."The case has him between a rock and a hard spot: "Quinten had the weight of the whole community on his shoulders. The black people didn't like him because he talked like a white man and he had a white man's job. The other policemen kept at a distance too. Some maniac was killing Negro women and Quinten was all alone."Easy is allowed to defer until a white woman is killed, and heavy political pressure comes to bear. A dual plot centers on both his home emotional life and the search for the serial killer. There's a side consequence of the murders when it comes to Easy's property. The serial killer has women scared, and some are moving in together. Easy's considering giving some women that want to room together a break on the rent: "Mofass shook his head sadly and slow. He couldn't take a deep breath but he felt sorry for me. How could I be so stupid and not bleed the whole world for a dollar and some change?"Characterization shines, as does the emotional tone of the book. Mosley has the perfect balance between detail and action. Description is better balanced in the overall scope of the book than in the The Red Death. L.A. is showcased in period colors, as Easy visits a strip club, a rooming house and a bordello. One of the most tension-laden visits involves visiting a white family--Mosley subtly conveys an sense of charged atmosphere and potential for disaster without sliding into diatribe. The secondary plot was also well done, with the emotional dynamic between Easy and Regina conveying the bewilderment, love and alienation as a relationship changes.As Easy investigates, we meet some interesting characters:"One door I passed revealed a man fully dressed in an antique zoot suit and a white ten-gallon hat. As I passed by we regarded each other as two wary lizards might stare as they slithered across some barren stone."At a rooming house, we're introduced to a horn player, Lips McGee:"He'd stand straight and tall and play that horn as if every bit of his soul could be concentrated through a silver pipe. Sweat shone across his wide forehead and his eyes became shiny slits. When Lips hit the high notes he made that horn sound like a woman who was where she wanted to be when she was in love with you."As an aside, I usually don't pay much attention to the book art, but the art on the hardcover edition is wonderful, a colorful cross between Juan Gris that is wall-print worthy.After A Red Death, I had my doubts about reading Mosley again. No concerns here. Cross posted at my book blog, http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Wow,I am utterly amazed once again by Walter Mosley's unbelievable ability to make great mystery books! This novel is the third book in Walter Mosley's captivating "Easy Rawlins Mystery" series, and like the previous novels in the series, this book is truly captivating and a joy to read. I honestly had a hard time putting the book down as Rawlins is back to his old ways of excitingly finding the criminal and doing almost anything and using everyone to get the job done. There are many twists in turns in this novel that make this book a perfect part of Mosley's writing style, and he brings almost all of the smallest details needed so it feels like you are riding shotgun as Easy Rawlins takes you on the ride of your life. Mosley has once again deeply defined himself as one of the best mystery novel authors out there, and you will not be disappointed as you see a black hero finally come out and battle crime, racism, marriage problems, financial issues, rogue/corrupt cops, and many other everyday problems a black man would be facing during the 1950's. This book has a few great themes, but the one that really stood out was that someone's pride can be the thing that destroys what they love most in the end. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in any type of mystery novel, loves Walter Dean Myers' writing style and books, or is looking for a novel that has plenty of action, romance, and suspense that will keep you on the end of your seat until the end. I would also recommend reading the first two books in the series before reading this one because then the story will seem much more clearer and easier to understand. However, I don't think that skipping the first two books will stop this amazing story from getting to you.
What do You think about White Butterfly (2002)?
I've really come to love the Easy Rawlins books. Mosley's writing feels, despite the vernacular of the culture in which they are set, very similar to Raymond Chandler to me. White Butterfly was no exception. Easy has more depth than Marlowe, more vulnerability or at least the reader gets to see more of those things. Easy wants to have a wife and kids and a home. He putters in his yard, growing vegetables and flowers. He's far a more domestic and kind of regular guy than Marlowe. But he has the same brilliant insight and perception, the same capacity for violence and mayhem, and the same simultaneous weariness of it. He has actual friends, which one gets the impression that Marlowe does not ever really have. Set around 1956, this is my parents' Los Angeles Easy cruises around, the LA of my parents memories and stories.White Butterfly delves into the world of an apparent serial killer who is slaying b-girls (kinda like strip club hostesses, not prostitutes but gals that sit down with fellas and encourage them to keep drinking and spending money, or just flat-out good-time party girls). Of course LAPD doesn't give a good god damn until a white girl turns up. Some coed from UCLA turns up dead like the other girls and all of a sudden, there's practically a task force assembled, except that no one who knows a thing will talk to anyone who looks like a cop. Enter Easy Rawlins, doing what he does best, tracking down leads and checking people out under the radar.
—Sandy Bookwitch
I read Black Betty, A Red Death, and White Butterfly one right after the other. I don't remember what order I read then in or the particular plot of any of them. They all came from a huge pile of books I got from a FreeCycle score in Phoenix. I had read Mosley's Futureland several years before and had been wanting to read more by him, so I was excited when these books fell into my lap.I do remember they were all of these three books plot driven rather than character driven. These books were all about action. The reader never learns very much about the pasts or even presents of any of the characters.I was all set to enjoy Walter Mosley, but these mysteries were not nearly as interesting to me as the author's dystopic tales in Futureland. I was disappointed.
—HeavyReader
Welcome to the third Easy Rawlins novel, in which you will find the racial comments and comparisons coming even further to the foreground and Easy Rawlins finds new and interesting ways to mess up his happy existence. Ahhh noir, thoroughly depressing yet incredibly enjoyable to read.Easy Rawlins really is a bastard at least half of the time but Mosley manages to create not an anti-hero but a real man with major faults yet prone to major kindness and trying to do the right thing for/by other people, whether they be black or white it doesn't matter.The mystery isn't exactly a good one and it's not exactly solved in a manner that allows you to feel like it was worthwhile but I think in these stories it isn't really the main issue. Mosley has some interesting points of view and imbues the story with what feels like authentic period flavour, the pontificating that he does is sugarcoated by the fact that this is also a good solid work of genre fiction. Whilst I wouldn't read his non-fiction book on black American history I would happily receive the same education in the awful things perpetrated against black Americans by reading these novels because Easy Rawlins likes to drink and fight and occasionally let his friend Mouse off the leash to kill people.Aside from the mystery and the educating of the reader, the life of Easy Rawlins is the other main aspect of these books; they are all told in a knowing way as if Easy is looking back on his life and telling you a story from his deathbed, (I wouldn't be surprised if this is true when I get to the final novel in the series although Mosley has proven himself to be a fine narrator and hopefully he wouldn't end the series in such a cliched way.) This time we watch Easy fall apart, the things he has strived for up until the start of this novel are slowly taken away from him and in a way he uses the mystery of The White Butterfly to redeem himself and pick himself back up ready for round 4.The reason for the 3 star rating is my recommendation not to read this book; it feels like a third book, meant for fans more than anything else, he does recap Easy's history but it really isn't the same as having read Devil In A Blue Dress first. Start at the beginning and enjoy getting to know this likable bastard Easy Rawlins.
—Tfitoby
