Easy Rawlins

Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins is the protagonist of the novel. He is a twenty-eight -year old black man from Texas who now resides in Los Angeles. Easy's circle of acquaintances is small in L.A. and he interacts mainly with other Southern black transplants, including many people he knew in Texas. The events of the novel force Easy to widen his circle of acquaintances to include white people and gangsters of various ethnic backgrounds.

Easy enlisted in the U.S. military and served for five years in Europe during World War II. His wartime experiences left Easy with the knowledge of what it means to kill another human being and an awareness of how white men act during times of distress. At the end of the war, Easy took part in liberating Jewish survivors from concentration camps, and this experience gave him a heightened sense of empathy toward...