Lori Roy is the author of Bent Road, winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel; Until She Comes Home, finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; Let Me Die in His Footsteps, winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel; and The Disappearing.Roy's new novel is Gone Too Long.
At CrimeReads the author tagged five "books that deliver smartly drawn plots, but that also mine the greater moral issues that make us all part of the story," including:
Devil in a Blue Dress (1990) by Walter MosleyRead about another entry on the list.
The author of more than 40 books, fiction and non-fiction, Walter Mosley began his writing career following a job as a computer programmer. In his debut novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, which was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best First Novel, Mosley introduces his protagonist,Easy Rawlins. After serving in WWII, Rawlins returns to Los Angeles where he takes a job in a factory, buys a house and settles into a routine. But his plan for a simple life is interrupted when, while working at the factory, a place Rawlins describes as a plantation, he stands up to his white supervisor and is fired for having done so. In order to pay the bills and retain his independence, Rawlings reluctantly accept a job investigating a woman who has gone missing in Watts. Writing against the backdrop of Watts in the post WWII era, Mosley, as he has done through the 14 books in the series and his many other works, tackles racial discrimination, violence in America and an unjust justice system.
Devil in a Blue Dress is among Al Roker's six favorite crime novels.
Raymond “Mouse” Alexander, from Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series, made The A.V. Club's list of “13 sidekicks who are cooler than their heroes.”
--Marshal Zeringue
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