| Title | : | White Butterfly (Easy Rawlins, #3) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0743451775 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780743451772 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1992 |
| Awards | : | Hammett Prize (1992), CWA Silver Dagger (1993), Edgar Award Best Novel (1993) |
White Butterfly (Easy Rawlins, #3) Reviews
-
Though Devil in a Blue Dress and A Red Death are great reads which stand apart from other books in the genre, White Butterfly might be the finest of the early stories featuring Easy Rawlins, for my money. Like Ross Macdonald, Walter Mosley weaves a tapestry of pain and heartache and human frailty into White Butterfly. Along the way we get to revisit the friendship of Mouse and Easy, and again Mosley puts a spotlight on the degrees of right and wrong.
Black girls are getting murdered at an alarming rate in 1956 Los Angeles, yet only when a white girl joins their ranks do the police ask for Easy's help. Helping the L.A.P.D. is the last thing Easy wants or needs at that particular moment. He has a woman named Regina and a child in his life now. Mosley again shows the complexity of the world Easy inhabits as a black man in post-war Los Angeles. That complexity extends to Easy himself. He cannot open up fully to Regina, keeping from her the fact that he owns property. Nor does he disclose to her the source of his income.
Mosley has written Easy as a good but deeply flawed man. Or in other words, all good men. Easy wrestles with his own life and motives as much as he does with the cops and bad guys. We as readers completely understand why Easy is more comfortable with the amoral Mouse than with the rest of society because of the deftly painted landscape of such by Mosley. The reader does not have to be black to appreciate the complex moral landscape Mosley paints of Easy's world. Mosley makes us feel Easy's personal loss at the end of this book, and it stays with us longer than the mystery.
If Raymond Chandler wrote like a slumming angel, then Mosley writes like an angel of the slums. He doesn't try to make us completely understand Easy's world, he simply allows the reader to ride along with Easy as he attempts to make sense of it all himself. Through Easy's struggle we learn about pain and sorrow and regret, which is to say we learn about life. A great read that, like all great books in the genre, is more than the sum of its parts. -
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 on assisting 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. -
My video review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwSxj... -
White Butterfly is my favorite installment of the Easy Rawlins series so far. In this one Mosley gives the reader a much better glimpse into Easy's personal life. We get to see just how much damage has been done to Easy over his lifetime of simply being a Black man. Easy, like so many others fleeing the smothering oppression of blackness in the south has built a life in California, but he still has baggage that makes him keep his business to himself. Easy and his new wife Regina have a marriage that is built on half truths and unasked questions. Easy can't bring himself to show Regina who he really is and Regina doesn't trust Easy with all of herself.
The murder in White Butterfly underscores how the death of black women do not become important until the body of a white woman is tied to them. With this turn of events, the local police look to Easy to help them find a killer who up until that point didn't warrant immediate attention.
Although I did enjoy the main plot of finding the killer, what I enjoyed the most was the fuller look into who Easy is as a man and human being in general. Also, Mouse played a small part and that man always provides head shaking entertainment when he enters a scene.
The only complaint I have with these books is that I read them too fast because they are so enjoyable! Luckily for me I am late to the Easy Rawlins game, so there are plenty more for me to enjoy. I read White Butterfly as a buddy read with Didi at Brown Girl Reading and this month we are going to read Black Betty which I am very much looking forward to!
You can find me at:
•(♥).•*Monlatable Book Reviews*•.(♥)•
Twitter:
@MonlatReader
Instagram:
@readermonica
Facebook:
Monica Reeds
Goodreads Group:
The Black Bookcase -
This is another epic book in the series of Easy Rawlins. I love everything about Easy and the characters throughout the book. I just feel so connected to the story. I find myself in detective mode wanting to help Easy solve each crime. Easy is so Smooth and yet he is so Raw. I am listening to the audio because I need the full effect of his voice and his every move. Moving on to book 4.
-
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. -
I'm in the process of collecting all of Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" series. I have no problem with second hand books, long as they're not too shabby. Now as far as the story is concerned it will be the next one I read, since I've already read at least 8 "Easy Rawlins," and not necessarily in order. I know I'll enjoy it as I'm a big fan.
-
Buscando en la noche, en barras de bar y lugares de topless, se descubre que la vida no ha sido fácil ni lo será. Los asesinos locos y no tan locos, tampoco lo tendrán. La vida continuará en esas pequeñas estrellas de la oscura noche.
-
As with Black Betty, Walter Mosley is superb at writing dialogue, character, and hard-luck situations.
His straightforward, unsentimental style is a great fit for his frequent commentary on race relations in Los Angeles (or America as a whole) in the 1950s. In my experience, white people who think that black people should "speak 'proper' English" or, living in poverty, should "just pull themselves up by their bootstraps" tend to shut down when the person telling them why this is ignorant shows any kind of emotion. Then, rather than arguing their points, they argue against the emotion of their debate partner, obtusely avoiding the point, saying something stupid like "see, it's this anger that gets you (or "them," as it were) nowhere!" But Easy Rawlins tells it like it is. I really don't think you can argue with his points, as a white person, without massive privilege clouding your view.
So yes, the atmosphere of the book is wonderfully done. I was prepared to four-star it, but by the end I found the mystery a bit lacking. It just didn't make up enough of the plot for me, and ended up being dashed off in the last 100 pages. With four women brutally killed, I just wanted a little more investment in learning about the person who'd done it and why. I am thinking possibly mystery stories aren't a good fit for me. I should just stick to police procedurals, because only those seem to invest a lot of time in both the investigation and discovery of a solution, which is more to my liking.
But I am also still going to stick to Walter Mosley, because the man is a damn good writer. Funny too:
The door to Aretha's hadn't been opened in a while when [Mouse] strolled out. He was wearing a bright yellow double-breasted jacket and dark brown pants. His silk shirt was blue and stamped all over with bright orange triangles. His close-cropped head was hatless. I guess Mouse figured that a man dressed like that just couldn't be killed. [p. 156] -
Easy is approached by the police in Los Angeles, looking for a killer of young women. Three Black girls, and now a white girl, were killed in the same fashion. The cops want Easy to use his common man approach to go where the police can't.
One interesting fact: Easy uses the alias "Eugene Tooms" in the story, and I wondered where I'd heard it before. The novel was written in '92, and used in a couple of episodes of The X Files for the shape shifter Tooms in '94/ -
Very enjoyable series with an interesting main character and plot.
-
White Butterfly is the third book in the Easy Rawlins series set in post-war Los Angeles. In this outing Easy is hustled by the police into helping to track down a serial killer preying on women in the city. It’s the most personal of the books so far in the series, as much about his private home life and him as a person as it is about the case (the first focused more on his history and social circle, the second on his business interests). Easy is a conflicted, flawed, complex character, with secrets that he guards from everyone, including his new wife; an ability to lie, cajole and hustle; a weakness to stray; and a questionable loyalty to a psychopathic friend; yet he also is loving and has his own moral compass he uses to navigate a fraught social world and everyday racism. He exposes all these characteristics as his marriage disintegrates as he searches for the killer. The case isn’t overly complicated, though it has a nice twist, but Mosley tells the tale through an engaging, affective voice and sparse prose that has the cadence of classic hardboiled noir. As with the other books in the series, there is nice historical and social contextualisation and sense of place. The result is a dark, somewhat bleak, but evocative story.
-
A compelling read - Easy Rawlins is a flawed man who nevertheless strives to do the right thing. But "right" is a mutable concept. It doesn't help that the LAPD begrudgingly enlist his assistance when they have a case they can't crack. I could read Mosley's conflicted love letter to L.A. and Rawlins' insights about how we treat each other, along racialized and gendered lines, all day.
-
The spot light on her was in the shape of a butterfly against the black back drop. The White Butterfly.
-
These novels are so paced and Easy is definitely a conpmlicated man. This one was not as good as the first two books but it's cool enough. And Easy gets his just due...lol
-
Author Walter Mosley proves successful at displaying his literary talents in the mystery, White Butterfly. Readers are transfixed into the bustling life of Ezekial “Easy” Rawlins as he forges a quest for a serial killer, in this exhilarating third installment into the Easy Rawlins mystery series. What he experiences will be unforeseen and come at a high cost.
The year is 1956 and Easy is settled peacefully at home in Los Angeles with his family, when he is unexpectedly visited and appealed by the L.A. County Police Department. Two young African American women have been found murdered with no traces to a possible motive and/or suspect, and they want Easy to locate the killer responsible for the gruesome murders. During the onset of the investigation, a third victim is found that spawns the interests of the media and ignites an aggressive sleuth from the police force. The victim is a young woman from an affluent Caucasian family, whose father is an esteemed prosecution attorney. Easy embarks on a ruthless mission that uncovers the lifestyles of each woman. The discovery will unlock dark secrets that will expose the bitter truth of the murders, as well as his life.
Walter Mosley exhibits precise literary skill from the evolution of his first main character, Ezekial “Easy” Rawlins. Easy can be unequivocally stubborn, unapologetically selfish, and undoubtedly keen on racial prejudices. Although he encompasses imperfect qualities, his capacity for survival, bold heroism, and fostering of children gravitates the reader to the character, ensuing an endeared personage.
White Butterfly is a page-turner, sure to illicit the interest of readers from beginning to end. Furthermore, I recommend this book to others. -
Actually 4.75 stars
L.A. police Quinten Naylor detective is an outcast, he's too white for the black population and too black for the white population so when he's charged with solving the case of a string of murdered black women, he's on his own. Quinten knows if anybody can help its Easy Rawlins because Easy just has a way with people, not to mention a quick mind that can cut through deception quickly.
Easy knows what's coming the minute Quinten stops by for a visit ending a quiet day at home with the wife and kids. No matter how easy Easy takes it, the twists and turns of life end with a complicated situation
The white policemen won't help Quinten - the victims don't register as people and don't think of it as a crime. The black population won't help Quinten - they won't open the victims and possible perpetrator to white captors. But then a white woman's murder is linked to the others and the case becomes a political hot potato.
Once again Mosley's unique style quite is fun in a noir setting. The lively characters have so much chemistry to spare they generate it by having their names mentioned (Mouse). The vivid descriptions and turn(s) of phrases make it easy to smell those odors, hear that music, see and feel those clothes and sights, they all help to make the outing fun for this reader. This page turner is a powerhouse that grabs you early and doesn't let go until you know who done it. -
I was introduced to Easy Rawlins by the movie "Devil in a Blue Dress" with Denzel Washington (and oh yeah, the then-unknown Don Cheadle), so of course I started reading the books. Now, years later, I'm going back to read them in order and catch the early ones I missed. After having mixed feelings about Mosley's second Rawlins novel, A Red Death, feeling like it wasn't up to the standards of his later books, I'm happy he hit his stride with White Butterfly - a really enjoyable noir-type mystery.
-
Easy Rawlin's has been 'tasked' aka blackmailed into helping the police find a killer of women (the police didn't care until the third killing; a white woman) if Easy doesn't help, his crazy killing friend Mouse will be jailed. Easy is married with two kids and just wants to chill but the po po wont let him be. Easy does, what Easy does and we're taken on a journey through the streets of Los Angeles in 1956 while Easy turns over stones, uncovers secrets and kicks ass to track down a killer(s) while trying to save his 'strange' marriage.
There was a slight buildup in this story and because there are a series of books; I only connected with the originals Easy and Mouse, all of the other folk were just there....ok read for me. -
At first I thought, it’s not about catching some pervy serial killer, it’s about the protagonist confronting his own part in maintaining and reproducing the ubiquitous male violence against women, both threatened and actual. I was like, this is like Oedipus ; I was like, this is a sledgehammer blow to the patriarchy right in the shins! I was like, and it’s got soul. But then Mouse shows up and Everything is just too Everything and you can’t get close to justice and maybe the best you can hope for is to survive without causing too much harm along the way. Note to self: do not start talking like these characters.
-
I love this series, and this book was particularly good. It's hard to describe Mosley's writing, or explain how good it is. It's sort of poetic. And although he always weaves an intricate and suspenseful plot, my favorite thing about his books is following Easy wherever he goes - meeting people he knows and hearing what they have to say, watching what they do, and listening to Easy's thoughts. He is such a complex character, far beyond the typical burned-out, alcoholic detective. I don't always embrace the "what" in his actions, but the character is painted so well, that I always understand the why.
-
While reading White Butterfly my father sat across from me reading Six Easy Pieces (one of Mr Mosley's Short story collections). Every few minutes or so one of us would read aloud to the other a memorable sentence or meaningful phrase we'd come across- and there are always plenty of those gems in his writings. His ability to drop nuggets of wisdom wrapped in beauty continues to be one of my favorite things about stepping into his worlds, and Butterfly carries on with said tradition.
3 1/2 stars -
This was a wonderful installment of the Easy Rawlins story. It has all the gritty and rough magic of the first two books, but it adds a great deal to the story of Easy's personal journey. I have to say, I feel for the guy. Nothing comes "easy" for him, and though the character in many ways is good and virtuous, Easy often is his his own worst enemy. A great, complex story. But deeply tragic.
I strongly recommend the series. -
I like this Walter Mosley. He writes a good story. Found this gem at the local charity shop. Picked it up on a whim and glad I did. Have to find some more novels by Mosley. This was an Easy Rawlins book dated Los Angeles 1956. Easy is working with the cops not because he likes them but because he as a proud black man knows his place in this world. Three women are killed, the cops come to Easy only after number four was killed. Number four was a white woman.
-
The antihero protagonist Easy Rawlins is my favorite character in crime fiction, and it’s not close. He’s complex, with his hard drinking, his stubbornness and his womanizing, but he has a strong moral code by which he lives. He is shaped by his surroundings in 1950s Watts, and each book brings more. I could have read it in two days, but I wanted to savor this visit to Easy’s world.
-
This was a very cool book. I like how chronologically he went from person to person to find info about who killed the black women and the white girl. The 2nd part of the book it was kinda hard to follow some of his leads. But I can honestly say when I found out that robins father was the one who killed his own daughter I was surprise. I never would have thought he did that. I guess I didn’t remember the clues. What I loved a lot is how Easy went about the problems of his life while dealing with issues with being a black man. And the police, and marriage problems. The context around the mystery I like more than actual mystery.
-
Igual que el anterior me ha resultado lioso por el exceso de nombres y , además, ni la historia ni la trama me han resultado particularmente buenas, aunque tiene un bonito giro casi al final y Mouse siempre anima cuando aparece. Creo que el autor aborda la resolución de los casos como una cosa más en la vida del protagonista y me ha gustado que en este libro se le dé mucha importancia a su vida privada, a su pasado, a sus emociones ... y, aunque el modo en que aborda la violación y su problemática representación de las mujeres ya lo justificaría, el autor no hace de él un “antihéroe” sino un hombre real que trata de hacer lo correcto para otras personas. Me gusta el estilo de Mosley, tan personal tan afectivo, tan "noir clásico" duro y la ambientación y sobre todo la contextualización histórica y social tan interesante que hace.
-
Hard to put this one down. Easy Rawlins gets involved in the murders of young "party women" trying to help the police (against his better judgement). All three were black women, and not much fuss in the news, then a while woman is killed in the same manor, big news splash and the pressure is put on Easy to fine out who did it. All this is messing with his marriage..
