The catfish, which is larger-than-life, represents the big dreams he has of being a homeowner and a professional success. He again puts himself in relation to an animal in his dream about the catfish.

When Easy regains his sense of pride and thirst for justice, he imagines that he mouse is Mason, whom he ‘crushes so that his whole suit is soiled and shapeless in the corner his eyes come out of his head’. At first, he sees himself as the mouse, cornered by the catlike Miller and Mason. While he waits in the interrogation room at the police station, he finds himself drawn to the dead mouse in the corner. He sees himself in the bird he has all the means to fly-to achieve the independence and joy to which he aspires-but finds himself both paralyzed and mesmerized by the thrills of crime, mystery, and danger. The first is the jay perched on the fence, which tantalizes the neighbor’s vicious dog. He uses several different animal images to define moments in Easy’s character arc. 25,000 first printing $25,000 ad/promo movie rights to Reuben Cannon Mysterious Book Club and QPB selections.Mostly uses animal symbolism to give us insight into character’s personalities. But the first-person narrative, which hurtles along with improbable transitions and sketchy psychological portraits, leaves the reader winded rather than exhilarated at the book's predictable conclusion. The language is hard-boiled (``Somewhere between the foo young and the check I decided to cut my losses'') and the portrait of black city life gritty and real. With bodies piling up, there is no turning back for Easy, as he is dogged by brutish white cops and a few ``brothers'' none too friendly. Easy becomes entangled in a chain of events that takes him to bar after bar to meet a range of characters, most of whom are seeking their own advantages in the pursuit of Daphne. But a white businessman, Dewitt Albright, engages Easy to locate a beautiful French woman named Daphne Monet who has a ``predilection for the company of negroes.'' She also has $30,000 of someone else's money.

He knows racism firsthand and seeing too many white men in one day unnerves him. Easy hails originally from the tough Fifth Ward in Houston he served his country, landing on the Normandy Beach. in 1948, introduces Ezekiel ``Easy'' Rawlins, a recently laid-off mechanic who is young, black and-but for the need to meet the mortgage on his new house-a most reluctant sleuth.

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley