Great noir detective novel. Our hero Easy walks the mean streets of postwar LA trying to hold onto what's his while pressed from all sides by crooks, goons, capitalists, cops, politicians, and systemic racism itself. I can tell that Mosley was even then a Nation reader. Aspects reminded me of the Man in my Basement, also by Mosley. I was struck by how amounts of liquor and beer were indicated in quarts (e.g. "I called the bartender to bring over a quart of bourbon & a pail of chipped ice... Dupree passed out before we finished the second quart.", "I've got a quart of beer in the icebox", etc.). I want to read the next one in the series too.