Raymond Alexander (Mouse) Was sent away as a kid by his mother and ultimately murdered both his stepfather and the man he came to believe was his real father. (Walter Mosley)

Masao (Mas) Arai Survived Hiroshima as a teenager, lived in the devastation, and came back to the States where he was born alone at 21, penniless. (Naomi Hirahara)

Renee Ballard’s Mother was never part of her life and left to live alone remotely in the mountains of Maui. Her father, a surfer, died when she was fourteen. She spent a year on the beach until her grandmother came for her. She is friendless. (Michael Connelly)

Harry Bosch’s Mother was a street walker in Hollywood. He was sent to a County institution at ten, McClaren Youth Hall, due to her being an 'un-fit mother', where he learned of her death at age twelve. He stayed at the Hall until age sixteen. He never knew his father though he met him on his deathbed. (Michael Connelly)

Sam Carver’s Father was a mean, frightening boxer, who was beaten to death in an alley when he was eleven, the killers never found. His mother has Alzheimer's and no longer speaks. (Jeffrey Fleishman)

Elvis Cole’s Mother was gone a lot, he never knowing when she would return. He would go to a neighbor who would call his grandfather, or an aunt, but sometimes had no one. He never learned his father’s name and his mother may not have known it. (Robert Crais)

Alex Delaware’s Father was an abusive, moody drunk while his mother was a chronic depressive who would lock herself in the bedroom for days, leaving his father fuming, reeking of alcohol. He left home as a kid, sneaking out without saying a word. (Jonathan Kellerman)

Eve Diamond’s Parents were Russian immigrants; her mother never spoke English well and succumbed to domestic drudgery, while her father was chronically depressed. They died when she was a teenager and her younger brother died jumping into a pool from a second-story balcony at a pool party she took him to in high school, after she and her friend ditched him. (Denise Hamilton)

Lena Gamble’s Mother ran off after she was born and her father died when his arm was caught in a conveyor belt at work, deemed his fault. She found her brother shot in a car in a Hollywood side street when on duty. (Robert Ellis)

Aaron Gunner Mother died of a heart attack when he was fourteen and his father died two years later. His cousin Del, his closest friend and confidant, took his own life to protect the reputation of his wife and daughter, after a struggle with a gun that left one wounded, one dead. (Gar Anthony Haywood)

Lloyd Hopkins’ Grew up in a house with a hateful anti-Catholic grandfather, an anti-Negro brother, and a mother rendered mute by a stroke. His father was oblivious, absently tinkering with old radios and TVs in the backyard. (James Ellroy)

Charlotte Justice’s Husband Keith and their six-month-old baby daughter were killed in their driveway by a drive-by shooter. (Paula L. Woods)

Philip Marlowe Had no family, no friends—a true loner. He found the places he lived meaningless. (Raymond Chandler)

Luis Rudolfo Vicente Mendoza’s Parents were killed in an auto accident when he was a month old. He was raised by his grandmother and hateful grandfather, a dirty Mex kid in the streets. He was ashamed at his Sixth Grade graduation to be the only one with nothing new, in the same old shirt and mended pants he had worn all year. (Dell Shannon)

Tenzing Norbu Lost his neglectful alcoholic mother at thirteen and was sent to his father, a Tibetan Buddhist monk in India, who didn’t want him and regretted his existence. (Gay Hendricks)

Lou Norton’s Father abandoned the family. When she was twelve her older sister Victoria was snatched off the streets never to be seen again. (Rachel Howzell Hall)

Joe Pike’s Father physically abused him and his mother. As a boy he hid in the woods to escape him. When asked to describe his mother he says bruises. (Robert Crais)

Isaiah Quintabe’s Mother died in an operation and his father fell into a deep depression and killed himself. He was left with his brother Marcus, who was killed right in front of him by a hit-and-run driver while they were walking together. He was still in high school and became depressed and anxious. (Joe Ide)

Easy Rawlins’ Mother died when he was eight and his father left soon after that. He was alone in the streets of Houston’s Fifth Ward and on his own by nine. (Walter Mosley)

Davie Richard’s Father Bill, a cop in a gang unit, shot a teenager who was left in a wheelchair. He was pressured to resign and abandoned by her mother and her brother. Her mother left and remarried, leaving Davie to deal with her mother’s betrayal and her father’s shattered psyche at fifteen. (Patricia Smiley)

Eve Ronin’s Mother was a movie extra who never made it and an alcoholic party girl whose children all came from brief affairs with different fathers. Eve raised her siblings and always felt responsible for them. Her mother stole her childhood and used her as a live-in babysitter, cook, maid, and driver. She felt her mother was just another child under her care, but much more difficult to control. (Lee Goldberg)

Caleb Rush’s Father was a Russian mob boss in Brighton Beach who severely beat his mother when she argued against him joining the mob. She left him and took Caleb to California, where she turned tricks in their apartment, locking him in the closet until it was over. She got a boyfriend in Bakersfield, and together they staged traffic accidents where his daughter would claim injuries. (Phoef Sutton)

Shane Scully Was dropped at a hospital back door at six weeks, without even a name—'Infant 105'. He was farmed out to five foster families but was always brought back—too fussy, too hard to handle—mostly raised by the County. He ended up at Huntington Group Home at age six and stayed through high school. He was forged by anger and loneliness, fuming that no one wanted him while insisting he didn’t need anyone. (Stephen J. Cannell)

Juniper Song’s Father died of liver cancer when she was five and she was raised by a strict Korean mother. After she went off to Yale for college her mother called to say her younger sister Iris was pregnant. Juniper came home and took her to the clinic, learning she’d had an affair with her high school teacher. Her mother and Iris moved to Houston, where Iris killed herself at sixteen. (Steph Cha)

Milo Sturgis Was a big, fat, gay kid from a family of a macho father and brothers, who knew he was different from age six. He vowed to get away from Gary Indiana at nine. (Jonathan Kellerman)

Virgil Tibbs Grew up in the Deep South and bitterly remembers having to step off the sidewalk when a white man wanted to pass and to be afraid of groups of white men in cars. At first learning he was “colored” he had no hope, as his father had had none. (John Ball)