Rating: 
Black Betty is a complex LA thriller with a human side to it. It features Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator living in hard times in LA in the early 1960s. Characters and relationships from Rawlins’ past weave through the book as he battles with the harsh realities of life and loss, and tries to solve an exceptionally complex murder mystery. Although I’m generally a pretty careful, thorough reader, on several occasions I found myself forgetting who a character was, slightly lost in the great mass of names. Having finished the book I’m still not to clear on who committed the crime and why.The book is well written, and shares something of the style of Ross McDonald’s crime fiction, although I found it more engaging.
