Devil in a Blue Dress (1990) Signed First Edition Reference

Devil in a Blue Dress was published by W.W. Norton in 1990, introducing Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins — a Black WWII veteran in 1948 Los Angeles who reluctantly enters the world of private investigation when he accepts a job finding a mysterious white woman named Daphne Monet. The novel launched one of the most important series in American crime fiction and provided a corrective to the genre’s historically white perspective on Los Angeles.

The Book

Mosley’s achievement is to make the American hardboiled detective novel truly inclusive. Easy Rawlins navigates the same Los Angeles that Chandler’s Marlowe walked, but he experiences it from the other side of the color line — the segregated neighborhoods, the police harassment, the double consciousness of being Black in a white-controlled city. The mystery plot is compelling; the social portrait is essential.

The 1995 film adaptation starring Denzel Washington brought the character to a massive audience and boosted interest in Mosley’s work.

First Edition Identification

Publisher: W.W. Norton, New York Publication date: 1990 Format: Hardcover in dust jacket

Signed Copy Market Values

• Signed first edition, fine/fine: $200–$600
• Inscribed copies: $300–$900
• Unsigned first edition, fine/fine: $50–$150

The most important debut in African-American crime fiction and one of the essential crime fiction first editions of the 1990s. The Denzel Washington film sustains crossover collector interest.