DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS (Easy Rawlins Mysteries) (1990)

Easy Rawlins needs money to keep his home in post-war Los Angeles when a stranger hires him to find a woman. Mosley makes his entry into investigation an immediate test of whom he can trust and what a Black man can safely ask. Easy's connections give the first case its route through the city, while Mouse is already a volatile presence worth knowing about. Start here for a voice and social world that can sustain a long series, with hardboiled violence from the beginning.