In late 1940s la, Easy Rawlins is an black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright, a white man searching to inquire into the disappearance of a missing white woman named Daphne Monet, that he suspects is concealing at a few of the black jazz clubs of the city. Confronting house payments and strapped for cash, Easy takes the task, but soon finds himself in over his head.