SOURCE: "Easy Does It," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, July 12, 1992, pp. 2, 12.

In the following review, Nolan judges the ending of White Butterfly disappointing, but believes readers will finish the book with "a real desire to learn what will happen next to Easy Rawlins."

Watts, 1956. Young women of easy virtue are being murdered and mutilated in especially repellent fashion. The police and the press pay little attention, as long as the victims are "Negroes," but when a young white woman is similarly killed, the powers that be demand action.

Problem is, the powers that be have little entree to the neighborhood.

Sounds like a case for Easy Rawlins—the unlicensed, unofficial and very off-the-books black detective who makes his third appearance in Walter Mosley's White Butterfly.

Mosley (born in Los Angeles but living now in New York City) introduced Ezekiel (Easy) Rawlins two years ago in his first...