SOURCE: "Easy Rawlins Rides Again," in Book World—The Washington Post, August 16, 1992, p. 6.

Corrigan is a commentator and teacher of detective fiction writing. In the following excerpt, she discusses the perpetual negativity in the lives of fictional detectives and finds White Butterfly charged with "excitement, social commentary, and clever, syncopated dialogue" but nevertheless "sad as hell."

There's a really depressing scene near the end of the third Easy Rawlins mystery, White Butterfly. Easy is sitting in his kitchen, sipping what must be his 20th vodka and grapefruit juice of the day. His wife, Regina, has just left him, taking their baby daughter. Before he surrenders to alcoholic oblivion, Easy rouses himself and describes the depth of his pain: "There was no song on the radio too stupid for my heart."

That image of Easy drowning his sorrows in vodka is so powerful, not only because we fans of...