This is the sixth book in the highly praised Easy Rawlins mysteries that began with DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS. They are set in post-WWII black Los Angeles, and unfold over the years. (The series is best read in order. BBBB, in particular, contains a major spoiler for the previous novel. Don't even read the book jacket.) Mosley is often compared with Chandler, but his foreground treatment of racial issues gives Mosley a charge that Chandler can't touch.

The mathematical content of BBBB is limited to chapter 39, where Easy seeks information from one Jackson Blue. (It can be read without spoiling anything.) Jackson is a 1964-era hacker, always reading. Here he's reading about Isaac Newton and calculus, and tries to sell Easy the idea that the life of Newton is like the life of the black man, and that calculus is the secret that runs the world. Easy is dubious, but wouldn't know any better.