In White Butterfly, Mosley explores the injustices of racism through a historical perspective on the life of Easy Rawlins, the novel's narrator. The year is 1956, the setting is the Watts district of Los Angeles, and the situation involves the brutal murders of four "party girls." When the third woman is murdered, Easy is contacted by the police for help. "I was worth a precinct full of detectives when the cops needed the word in the ghetto."

Then there is a fourth murder. The first three victims, African Americans, barely make the newspapers, but the fourth, Robin Garnett, is a white coed and garners headlines. Coerced into action by the pressure from the police, who declare Easy's best friend a suspect, Easy hits the streets again.

Police pressure and brutality are integral to the African American experience depicted. "Most cops blended into one brutal fist for me...