This novel follows Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins, a hard-boiled, African American private investigator, as he navigates the racial lines in postwar America while also solving crimes. A Black war veteran, he's just been fired from his job at a defense factory plant. Drinking in his friend's bar, he's wondering how he'll manage to make ends meet, when a white man in a linen suit approaches him and offers him good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a missing blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs. Easy has no idea that by taking this job, his life is about to change forever.