SHORTLISTED FOR THE 1993 GOLDEN DAGGER AWARD

'In the crime field this is unquestionably the novel of the year' Literary Review

**'P**erhaps the most important black literary figure to appear on the scene since James Baldwin's death' Guardian

The police don't show up on Easy Rawlins's doorstep until the third girl dies. It's Los Angeles, 1956, and it takes more than one murdered black girl before the cops get interested. Now they need Easy. As he says: "I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto." But Easy turns them down. He's married now, a father -- and his detective days are over. Then a white college coed dies the same brutal death, and the cops put the heat on Easy: If he doesn't help, his best friend is headed for jail. So Easy's back, walking the midnight streets of Watts and the darker, twisted avenues of a cunning killer's mind...