Had gone wrong, and the killings resulted: ''a simple case,'' Easy tells himself, ''of a falling-out among thieves.'' But it is not as straightforward as that, and the true solution containsĪ surprise that some readers may think is a nice twist on the denouement of ''The Maltese Falcon.'' Easy and Idabell have a lively sexual passage, but in the wake of it Idabell is found stabbed to death in the passenger seat of Easy'sĪs he gradually discovers, Easy has got mixed up with a gang of criminals engaged both in systematically looting Los Angeles schools - something for which Easy is noisily accused - and in smuggling heroin from France. Holland himself then turns up dead, as does his twin brother, Roman. (The episode in which he gets that job makes a vivid but relevant short story in itself.) Easy is inveigled into harboring her small dog, Pharaoh, whom Idabell's husband,

Truth Junior High School, where Easy is head custodian. In this case, the request comes from the attractive Idabell Turner, a black teacher in Sojourner

But here as before, Easy risks the danger when called on for help. His whole life, indeed, as he sees it, periodically verges on disaster. They are not legally adopted, and the thought of their removal is one source of Easy's frequent seizures of anxiety Whom he has high aspirations - Jesus, a Mexican boy, and Feather, a half-black, half-white 7-year-old girl. ''A Little Yellow Dog'' is set in 1963, and Easy is 43 years old, abandoned by his wife in the previous episode, but warmed by the presence of the two children he rescued from frightful conditions, and for Sorties and his shifting relationships, mostly in Los Angeles's black precincts. It is in fact a saga, not simply a series: the unfolding story of Ezekiel Porterhouse Rawlins from the late 1940's onward (with glimpses of his earlier life in Louisiana, Texas and World War II), his perilous detective It sprang into being, resoundingly, with ''Devil in a Blue Dress'' in 1990 and has continued through three vigorous novels before the present well-energized andĬrafty volume. The saga of Easy Rawlins moves forward apace.

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