In Gone Fishin', Walter Mosley explores the African-American experience in the harshly racist South of 1939. His primary focus is the social adjustment of the novel's narrator Ezekiel Rawlins, called Easy. Although the novel is a prequel to the historical mystery series which features Easy, the character is not the usual shrewd Los Angeles sleuth in this outing. He is a nineteen-year-old observer searching within himself for answers. The quest begins in segregated Houston, where Easy resides at the time.

The limited opportunities open to young men like him are apparent from his job of filling in for a sick gardener.

Easy drops the work when he is approached for a favor by his dubious and idle friend Raymond Alexander, better known to series readers as the violent Mouse. For a fifteen-dollar IOU, and a willingness to forgive the one night Easy spent with EttaMae Harris, Mouse...