Shoedog has bark and bite.

Another book I picked up at the aforementioned bookstore was an early novel by George Pelecanos called Shoedog.

Shoedog tells the story of a mysterious drifter, Constance, trying to find his place in the world. Picked up hitchhiking, he enters a world of violence, and he seems to fit right in.

Like all of the other books from Pelecanos I've read, this one does not fail to entertain. Certainly part of is his works take place in D.C. and the surrounding areas, so I'm familiar with some of the places. But there's more.

Very few authors not only have a voice, but also a rhythm. Michael Connelly has Jazz. George Pelecanos has Soul.

And it's all good music.

The Devil in a Blue Dress hates whitey.

It's been a while since I updated this damn thing, but it's not for lack of reading, but lack of time.

My father found a bookstore in Columbia a couple weeks ago, and I ended up walking out with $40 in books, Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley being one of them.

I had seen the movie of the same name staring Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle (who stole every damn scene he was in), so I had a pretty good idea what the book was about.

Surprisingly, from what I can remember (I last saw the movie about a year ago), the film was pretty faithful to the book. The book, of course, was better and Mosley's got a pretty good style about him that I like.

The one thing I didn't like about the book (and it actually hurts it, some), is how much Easy Rawlins, the main character, distrusts whitey. Okay, fine, I get it. White people aren't trustworty. Stop shoving it down my throat.

I can credit it to the time (it takes place in the late '40s IIRC) when racism was a much bigger, visual, part of America and I can credit it to the character, but honestly, give it a rest already.

That is not going to disuade me from reading more of Mosley, though, because based on my first outing with him, he really does have a stellar voice and I'm more than willing to overlook the underlying hatred of the honkey for another book or two.

But if that is an underlying theme, I will unfortunately put him down.