Black Betty  
Walter Mosley
$19.95  / Hardcover
ISBN 0393036448
W. W. Norton
Mystery

The place is Los Angeles.  The year is 1961, the dawn of a hopeful era for America’s black citizens.  Easy Rawlins’s quiet real-estate empire is deep in the hole, so he must accept $200 from the oily white private eye Saul Lynx to track down one Elizabeth Eady, aka “Black Betty.”  From her native Houston’s Fifth Ward to her position as housekeeper for the immensely wealthy Cain family of Beverly Hills, Betty’s stunning beauty and raw sensuality have left a trail of chaos and mayhem in her wake.  To compound Easy’s troubles, his murderous sidekick Mouse is due out of jail, and he has bloody revenge on his mind…