January 1970. Ezekiel 'Easy' Rawlins, LA's premier Black detective, at 50 years of age despite all expectations. A loving family, a beautiful home, and a thriving investigation agency: all is right with the world. When Amethystine Stoller - his own personal Helen of Troy - arrives, seeking answers about her ex-husband's disappearance, Easy wants to believe he has a simple case on his hands. But the investigation sends him on a trip down memory lane: haunted by loss, love, and a hunger that has eaten at him since he was a Black boy on his own on the streets of Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas. As the case becomes personal, Easy faces a reckoning. A new decade brings with it new expectations: men and women, Black and White, and wrong or right. To save his soul and solve the case, Easy has a big choice to make.