Which author created the 'Easy Rawlins' series?

Walter Mosley created the Easy Rawlins series. The central character, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, is an African American private investigator living in Los Angeles, and the novels explore crime alongside race, power, and social inequality in the city’s postwar neighborhoods.

Rawlins first appeared in Devil in a Blue Dress, Mosley’s 1990 debut novel. The story is set in 1948 and follows Easy after he is pressured into finding a missing white woman. Although Rawlins works in the tradition of hard-boiled detectives such as Philip Marlowe, he is not a conventional professional investigator: he is a World War II veteran, has no formal law-enforcement training, and initially operates without a license.

Readers sometimes mistake the series for a single novel or confuse its creator with earlier Black mystery writers such as Chester Himes. Mosley’s books stand out for placing a Black protagonist at the center of mid-century Los Angeles crime fiction. The character was also portrayed by Denzel Washington in the 1995 film adaptation of Devil in a Blue Dress.