Ezekiel 'Easy' Porterhouse Rawlins, an unlicensed private investigator turned hard-boiled detective, is always willing to do what it takes to get things done in the racially charged, dark underbelly of 1960s Los Angeles. But when Easy is approached by a shell-shocked Vietnam War veteran--a young white man who claims to have gotten into a fight protecting a white woman from a black man--he knows he shouldn't take the case. Though he sees nothing but trouble in the brooding ex-soldier's eyes, Easy, a vet himself, feels a kinship form between them.