A Red Death — Walter Mosley

It's 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles, a moral tar-pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of "the hurting business" and into the housing (and the favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First African Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist union organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin....