By Walter Mosley
 
The year is 1948, the town in Los Angeles. Easy Rawlins, a black WWII veteran, has just been fired from his job at a defense factory. Drinking in his friend's bar, he's wondering how he'll manage to make ends meet. Then a white man in an off-white linen suit approaches him and offers him good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a missing blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs. Easy doesn't know it yet, but by taking this job, his life is about to change forever.