From the acclaimed bestselling author of the Easy Rawlins series, deemed “one of America’s best mystery writers” (The New York Times Book Review), comes a tale about a murdered man who does not want to go to heaven or hell–he’d rather have his old life in Harlem. The police don’t show up on Easy’s doorstep until the third girl dies. It’s Los Angeles, 1956 and it takes more than a murdered black … more than a murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. The LAPD need help to find the serial killer who’s going around murdering young, African American strippers. They only show up when the killer murders a white girl.
But Easy turns them down. As he says: “I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto.” He’s married now, a father, and his detective days are over. When the white college coed dies, the cops make it clear that if Easy doesn’t help his best friend is headed for jail. So Easy is back, walking the midnight streets of Watts and the darker twisted avenues of a cunning killer’s mind, in the most explosive Easy Rawlins mystery yet.
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White Butterfly is the third book in the Easy Rawlins series by Walter Mosley. Easy is basically blackmailed by the LAPD to help investigate the brutal murders of three young women. Interestingly, the police didn’t see the need to contact Easy after the first two murders, both black women. When the third woman, a white girl, is murdered they need help finding the serial killer. Easy’s life is more complicated. He’s crazy about his wife, baby daughter, and adopted son. At no surprise the investigation gets complicated, and just in case that isn’t bad enough, Easy’s ‘acquaintance’ Mouse arrives on the scene. Things become complex and Easy, once again, has a lot to deal with. I’m on to book 4 and enjoying the series.
A Murder, Endangered Species and a Harrowing Hunt
As a reader and a writer, I treasure great beginnings of novels and Linda Farnstein’s DEADFALL delivers a particularly strong one. The story opens with DA Alex Cooper catching the body of her boss, who just been shot, his head exploding onto her. Farnstein is skilled at narrating this episode so that it pulls the reader in, rather than freaking the reader out. This is one author who took the adage of delivering a body on the first page quite literally.
Our heroine and first person POV Alex becomes both a suspect and the sleuth in a complicated puzzle which involves the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Bronx Zoo and an international network of poachers. Along the trail of detecting, Alex (and the reader) learns a great deal about the plight of endangered species and the efforts to preserve them, not to mention the sale of ivory tusks and hunting preserves throughout the US West (though at times, Farnstein’s style often lends to more telling than showing). Throughout it all, Alex is a stubborn, determined investigator aided in her investigation by a few of New York’s finest, including her beau. There’s much more here, including inter agency rivalries, the intrusion of politics into the world of prosecution and the history of zoos in the Big Apple. The descriptions are first rate and the trail to find the murderer is a bit convoluted, but the ride is enjoyable. And, as a bonus, by the end, the reader comes away far more informed on the central issue of protection of endangered animals. And as my readers know, I’m a sucker for serious consideration of social issues.
Very boring book
White Butterfly is about a series of murders in the black community of Los Angeles in 1956. The police paid little attention to the murders since the victims were black women. But, when a white stripper, Cyndi Starr, AKA The White Butterfly is murdered then everything changes. It turns out that she was a UCLA coed and daughter to one the city’s most powerful attorneys that finally gets the police’s attention.
At first, Easy Rawlins didn’t want to have anything to do with solving the murder of White Butterfly. He wanted to spend time with his new wife, the kids, and be left alone. However, when his best friend, Raymond “Mouse” Alexander is considered a suspect in the murder that Easy gets drawn in.
White Butterfly is a standard whodunit story with several interesting twists and turns that makes it a good, solid read. But for me, Easy Rawlins is the most compelling reason for reading the novel.
He is a character of surprising contradictions. Easy is a ladies’ man but adopts a Hispanic boy named Jesus and raising him as his son. He has a best friend who wants to kill anyone that crosses him but Easy prefers not to kill when solving a case. Moreover, most of the community where he lives is poor, but he lives comfortably and holds several pieces of real estate which becomes an interesting subplot in the novel. Those contradictions are shown in good detail and takes White Butterfly beyond the usual mystery story.
Most critics of Walter Mosley have praised his authentic dialogue similar to Elmore Leonard. But, I will have to disagree with those critics. I felt the dialogue of Broken English distracts from the story and took away from Easy’s rich characterization. (Maybe, since I grew up in Florida and I’ve heard people talk like that all the time…that it didn’t nothing for me.) That was my main critique of the novel.
If you are looking for a good mystery with a colorful main character and an original setting then I will recommend White Butterfly for your reading pleasure.