Chester B. Himes has been called "one of the towering figures of the black literary tradition" (Henry Louis Gates Jr.), "the best writer of mayhem yarns since Raymond Chandler" (San Francisco Chronicle), and "a quirky American genius" (Walter Mosely). He was the twentieth century's most prolific bla[...]
New York is sweltering in the summer heat, and Harlem is dose to the boiling point. To Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, at times it seems as if the whole world has gone mad. Trying, as always, to keep some kind of peace-their legendary nickel-plated Colts very much in evidence-Coffin Ed and[...]
Black flim-flam man Deke O'Hara is no sooner out of Atlanta's state penitentiary than he's back on the streets working the scam of a lifetime. As sponsor of the Back-to-Africa movement he's counting on the big Harlem rally to produce a big collection--for his own private charity. But the take ($87,0[...]
Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones get personally involved in a gang dispute in "The Real Cool Killers," one of the most provocative cases in Chester Himes's groundbreaking Harlem Detectives series.
Many people had reasons for killing Ulysses Galen, a big Greek with too much money and too [...]
Love and jealousy erupt into violence in "The Crazy Kill," a classic thriller in Chester Himes's trailblazing Harlem Detectives series.
One early morning, Reverend Short is watching from his bedroom window as the A&P across the street is robbed. As he tries to see the thief get away, the opium-a[...]