Mosley builds off of Chester Himes with his protagonist Easy Rawlins, an African American who migrates to California during the war in search of work in the shipbuilding industry. He is now a detective, fully aware of the ongoing racial tensions of 1940s Los Angeles.
Furthermore, Easy Rawlins is not like Holmes or Dupin in the way that he is not a social isolate. He does set himself apart as a self-educated African American of the middle class but he doesn't live on the fringe of society. Who he is puts him in the middle of two worlds, and though he is treated and often perceived as just another man of color, he strives for the values of the Caucasian majority.
This novel begins right after the Watts riots. Many mystery novels begin with a murder, and the Watts riots are treated like one. This is a story that tugs at the strings of society and it's as much a pursuit of a killer as it is of the understanding of what caused the riots. There are no easy solutions, and unlike the more comfortable guess-who mysteries, justice is not symmetrical.
As a hard-boiled mystery, this story leaves the impression that stopping one killer hardly stops killing. It gives the impression that murder and injustice are as large and ever-present as racial tensions.