Style/genre: Hard-boiled
If you like this try…Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, Dashiell Hammett
Rating:4 out of 5 fingerprints
” ‘Easy Rawlins!’ ” someone called. I turned to see Quinten Naylor twist the handle of my front gate…
Easy Rawlins, the WWII vet cum detective of Watts’ mean streets, is now married and a father in 1956 Los Angeles…and ready for the straight and narrow. His wife Regina, his infant daughter Edna and his adopted son, Jesus, now occupy his time. Detective Quentin Naylor, however, needs Easy’s help. A serial killer is targeting African-American women from seedy neighborhoods. Easy refuses but soon his best friend Mouse Alexander is the chief suspect. Easy searches for the real killer among his former haunts . Easy’s wife , who tries unsuccessfully to learn about Easy’s past, grows ever more distant. When a white woman is unexpectedly killed, the police investigation goes into overdrive.
The white woman, a stripper called “The White Butterfly”, is known to the outside world as a fresh-faced UCLA student whose father is an influential prosecutor. Easy must peel away the layers of her false identity to find her connection to the other three women. But time is running out–especially when a series of similar murders occurs in another city.
Can Easy keep his family together, keep Mouse out of jail, and find the real killer?