I was taking an online master class on writing with Walter Mosley and his insights are so extraordinarily on point, I felt I had missed something by having never read his work. I discovered an authentic voice in his protagonist, Ezekiel ``Easy'' Rawlins, that is both honest, steady, and addictive.

The story itself is set in 1948 Los Angeles, and Easy is a young World War II vet turned mechanic. When he is laid off, Easy is afraid he won't be able to pay the mortgage on his new house, prompting him to pick up a side gig as a private detective.

The case, offered by a villain in a white suit, is to find a beautiful French woman named Daphne Monet. She may have a `predilection for 'his kind' of people but has also attracted the fancy of a well-established businessman (and absconded $30,000 from him). Easy takes a long way around to find her, introducing the reader to the gritty black city life of the era, and with all the zest of a hard-boiled crime novel.

Mosley's plotting isn't very complicated in his earliest outing but does very well, creating an air of mystery and suspense. He also captures a point and place in history where Black people were attempting to reconcile who they were and ought to be. We see this is in Daphne Monet and, almost surprisingly, Easy. Mosely is pitch-perfect in opening a discussion as an undertone to the main story.