In a mystery set in 1950s Los Angeles, small-time used bookstore owner Paris Minton enlists the aid of his friend, Fearless Jones, to uncover the identity of a mysterious and beautiful woman who seems to be linked to a series of bizarre attacks against Minton.

"In his first novel in ten years, Ernest Gaines, the highly acclaimed author of the best-selling The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, brings us a wrenching story of death and identity in a small Cajun Louisiana community in the late 1940s." "A young black named Jefferson is a reluctant party in a shoot-out in a liquor store in which the three other men involved are all killed, including the white store owner. Jefferson, the only survivor, is accused...

Stories about Simple, chosen by Langston Hughes from three previously published books.

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs....

LA's black investigator Easy Rawlins, financially in the hole, must accept $2,000 from the oily white private eye Saul Lynx to track down one Elizabeth Eady, aka Black Betty. From her native Houston to her position as a housekeeper for a wealthy Beverly Hills family Betty's beauty and sensuality have left a trail of chaos. By the author of White Butterfly.

Nineteen-year-old Easy Rawlins and his friend Mouse become engulfed in a world of voodoo, revenge, and death, when they set out in 1939 to retrieve money from Mouse's stepfather so that Mouse can marry EttaMae--a girl with whom Easy was once involved.

Easy Rawlins is in trouble with the IRS, then the murders begin and he finds he's the prime suspect with the LAPD.