In 1956 Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins, private eye, is called on by the police when a serial killer, after killing three black bar girls with little attention, kills a white stripper who turns out to be the daughter of a politically powerful L.A. prosecutor.

Young Brawly Brown has traded in his family for The Clan of the First Men, a group rejecting white leadership and laws. Brown's mom asks Easy to make sure her baby's okay, and Easy promises to find him. His first day on the case, Easy comes face-to-face with a corpse, and before he knows it he is a murder suspect and in the middle of a police raid. Brawly Brown is clearly the kind of trouble most folks try to avoid. It takes everything Easy has just...

Fearing his friend, Christmas Black, has met his demise when the ex-Marine's daughter is left on his doorstep, reluctant L.A. detective Easy Rawlins finds the challenges of caring for a child further complicated by another friend's murder accusation.

Life for Easy Rawlins is surprisingly... easy. He's living off the proceeds of his last case, trying to keep out of trouble. Of course it's not going to last. Because Easy's old friend Mouse knocks on his door. Mouse is one of the deadliest men in America. And Mouse wants a small favor. He wants Easy to help a man he says is wrongly imprisoned, a friend of Charcoal Joe. Charcoal Joe is a mythical figure in the LA underworld - he pulls all the strings...

"After being approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a white woman from a black man, Easy embarks on an investigation that takes him from mountaintops to the desert, through South Central and into sex clubs and the homes of the fabulously wealthy, facing hippies, the mob, and old friends perhaps more dangerous than anyone else."--Publisher description. 1969. Easy Rawlins, the Black private...