- Paperback: 159 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Books; Reissue edition (1 Aug 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679720391
- ISBN-13: 978-0679720393
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,591,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
The greatest find in American crime fiction since Raymond Chandler (Sunday Times )
Outrageous, shocking, wonderful (New York Times Book Review )
Himes wrote spectacularly successful entertainments, filled with gems of descriptive writing, plots that barely sidestep chaos, characters surreal, grotesque, comic, hip, Harlem recollected as a place that can make you laugh, cry, shudder. (John Edgar Wideman )
A fantasia with a hard brilliant core (Evening Standard )
A fine crime writer of Chandlerian subtlety though in a vein of sheer toughness very much his own (The Times )
He belongs with those great demented realists ... whose writing pitilessly exposes the ridiculousness of the human condition (Will Self )
That he could channel this pain and misery into some of the greatest crime novels ever written is a testament to his skill as a writer and his spirit as a man. If this is the first Chester Himes novel you will read then, believe me, you are in for a treat. (Noel "Razor" Smith )
Hieronymus Bosch meets Miles Davis (The New York Times )
Chester Himes is the great lost crime writer, as well a great American dissident novelist per se, and an essential witness to his times. Every one of his beyond-cool Harlem novels is cherished by every reader who finds it. (Jonathan Lethem ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Outrageous, shocking, wonderful (New York Times Book Review )
Himes wrote spectacularly successful entertainments, filled with gems of descriptive writing, plots that barely sidestep chaos, characters surreal, grotesque, comic, hip, Harlem recollected as a place that can make you laugh, cry, shudder. (John Edgar Wideman )
A fantasia with a hard brilliant core (Evening Standard )
A fine crime writer of Chandlerian subtlety though in a vein of sheer toughness very much his own (The Times )
He belongs with those great demented realists ... whose writing pitilessly exposes the ridiculousness of the human condition (Will Self )
That he could channel this pain and misery into some of the greatest crime novels ever written is a testament to his skill as a writer and his spirit as a man. If this is the first Chester Himes novel you will read then, believe me, you are in for a treat. (Noel "Razor" Smith )
Hieronymus Bosch meets Miles Davis (The New York Times )
Chester Himes is the great lost crime writer, as well a great American dissident novelist per se, and an essential witness to his times. Every one of his beyond-cool Harlem novels is cherished by every reader who finds it. (Jonathan Lethem ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Product Description
Many people had reasons for killing Galen, a big Greek with too much money and too great a liking for young black girls. But there are complications--like a drug addict, a disappearing suspect, and the fact that Coffin Ed's daughter is up to her neck in the whole explosive business.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
The opening of the novel is one of the most puzzling and challenging I've ever read. Things happen and they seem absurd. People shout at each other, wound each other terribly, a man is shot to death, and there seems to be no reason for this.
But as the novel unfolds, reasons start to surface. By the end, we know there was nothing absurd in the opening scene, but everything happened for a reason. Reasons tightly entwined with human passions and twists.
For me, this is the most fascinating aspect of the novel.
I love Chester Himes. I love his visceral, powerful way to handle his characters, the way he drills reasons and passions inside them. The way they talk, the way they act. His characters always seem so real, they always act in response to inner desires and outside pushes, so that they seem real even when they act absurd - or seem to.
Still, this second novel set in Harlem it's not as powerful as the first one (`Rage in Harlem'). The action only spans a few hours, but while the investigation (lead by Grave Digger Jones) is tight, with a strong logic leading it, and with strong characters populating it, the parallel thread regarding the kids' gang is not as strong. The two threads meet at the end, but in the apartment where the kids hide nothing relevant seems to happen. The action meanders a little, there seems to be no real purpose but to take time while the investigation has its course. I didn't get bored because of Himes' incredible ability to create situations and his mastery in creating dialogue, but I did enjoyed the investigation more, and I did look forward to go back to Grave Digger when I was reading the kids.
In spite of this, I enjoyed it. A lot.
But as the novel unfolds, reasons start to surface. By the end, we know there was nothing absurd in the opening scene, but everything happened for a reason. Reasons tightly entwined with human passions and twists.
For me, this is the most fascinating aspect of the novel.
I love Chester Himes. I love his visceral, powerful way to handle his characters, the way he drills reasons and passions inside them. The way they talk, the way they act. His characters always seem so real, they always act in response to inner desires and outside pushes, so that they seem real even when they act absurd - or seem to.
Still, this second novel set in Harlem it's not as powerful as the first one (`Rage in Harlem'). The action only spans a few hours, but while the investigation (lead by Grave Digger Jones) is tight, with a strong logic leading it, and with strong characters populating it, the parallel thread regarding the kids' gang is not as strong. The two threads meet at the end, but in the apartment where the kids hide nothing relevant seems to happen. The action meanders a little, there seems to be no real purpose but to take time while the investigation has its course. I didn't get bored because of Himes' incredible ability to create situations and his mastery in creating dialogue, but I did enjoyed the investigation more, and I did look forward to go back to Grave Digger when I was reading the kids.
In spite of this, I enjoyed it. A lot.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The second novel in a series by Mr Himes which features two tough, black, Harlem police detectives, 'Coffin' Ed Johnson and 'Grave Digger' Jones. They trade on their notoriety amongst the black community where they are loathed and feared by the criminal underworld. They dont use sirens to pull over suspects but simply shoot out rear-view mirrors and fenders with their nickel-plated guns; 'these people dont have respect for a gun that dont have a shiny barrel half a mile long'.
The novel has a genuinely scary opening as the mob pursues an apparently innocent white man to his death in broad daylight on the sweltering streets of Harlem. Johnson and Jones are coincidentally on the scene in seconds to arrest the killer but things get wildly out of hand and the novel races through the 24 hour investigation to put the genie back in the bottle.
Mr Himes is a black American author writing about black characters repeatedly deriding them as 'these people' who universally seem to be portrayed as stupid, criminal, violent drug-users. There is intense frustration in getting any answers to the simplest questions, 'you people act like you belong to a race of artful dodgers' forcing Jonhnson and Jones to use extreme methods. Be prepared for graphic violence and racist abuse.
This is raw American inner city life only a few years before the explosion into major riots. It has a value as social commentary and Mr Himes enjoys throwing the reader off guard. This is particularly true of the near eponymous 'Real Cool Moslems' whose portrayal varies from loathsome street thugs to the 'Boss Cat' gang.
Despite these original and worthy insights there are shortcomings. As pure crime novel the plot is not up to the mark, secondly the two cops are poorly developed as characters; in danger of just being thugs with big guns and badges. Possession of an American Dictionary is recommended.
The novel has a genuinely scary opening as the mob pursues an apparently innocent white man to his death in broad daylight on the sweltering streets of Harlem. Johnson and Jones are coincidentally on the scene in seconds to arrest the killer but things get wildly out of hand and the novel races through the 24 hour investigation to put the genie back in the bottle.
Mr Himes is a black American author writing about black characters repeatedly deriding them as 'these people' who universally seem to be portrayed as stupid, criminal, violent drug-users. There is intense frustration in getting any answers to the simplest questions, 'you people act like you belong to a race of artful dodgers' forcing Jonhnson and Jones to use extreme methods. Be prepared for graphic violence and racist abuse.
This is raw American inner city life only a few years before the explosion into major riots. It has a value as social commentary and Mr Himes enjoys throwing the reader off guard. This is particularly true of the near eponymous 'Real Cool Moslems' whose portrayal varies from loathsome street thugs to the 'Boss Cat' gang.
Despite these original and worthy insights there are shortcomings. As pure crime novel the plot is not up to the mark, secondly the two cops are poorly developed as characters; in danger of just being thugs with big guns and badges. Possession of an American Dictionary is recommended.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
11 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Chester's Best
29 Sep 2003
Format:Hardcover
Chester Himes stands a bit apart- and perhaps a bit above- most of the mid-century crime and suspense novelists that this re-issue series collects. The action and the energy level are the equal of any writer in the genre, and for pure readability he's one of the most entertaining. But there is clearly some valid literary intent here as well, and as a result bookstores have never been quite sure where to place the few novels he wrote about Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones.
Himes' background as a black ex-convict (and eventual expatriate) add to his interesting perspective as he tries to capture- or, more accurately, caricature- the violence and the "comic chaos" (his phrase) of the Harlem Renaissance. Coffin Ed and Gravedigger are two ruthless detectives caught between their own people and the white law that employs them; they really don't fit into any group other than themselves. They are outsiders who believe strongly in order and in the guns they carry, but are often conflicted, and occasionally even divided.
This is probably the best and the tightest of Himes' stories with these characters; it is a fabulous read and one I will return to often over the years. The world Himes conjures is savage and disturbing, and the characters are eccentric to the point of being circus freaks, but are always believable and compelling. This is the kind of book that will leave you trying to describe scenes to your friends.
Coffin Ed and Gravedigger may be the greatest individual creations of a very rich genre. I'd say start here.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Harlem Noir
7 July 2004
Format:Paperback
These mid-century crime novels are a favorite genre of mine, but I didn't know much about Chester Himes before picking this one up. The mystery itself is interesting but secondary in importance to the setting of Harlem and the many characters that live there. Himes has a great style and he uses dialect just enough to give us a sense of setting.
Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Johnson have names that sound like a couple of cops that don't mind putting the occasional criminal under the grass -- and they do. They're introduced shortly after the opening murder and they prove themselves immediately tough and competent.
Gravedigger and Coffin learn that the mystery goes deeper than one shooting. (It usually does in these kinds of novels). What's interesting is the way the people of Harlem respects these black cops, but still don't trust them. Their ability is even respected by the white cops that don't mind uttering the frequent racial slur towards the casual citizenry. Gravedigger and Coffin are in a world between the white establishment and the everyday people of Harlem. The conflict creates the same kind of tension that Marlowe and Spade have with the regular police.
You can also give Himes credit for not stereotyping any of the characters black or white. The white cops aren't all corrupt and the blacks aren't all angels. The book made for a quick and interesting getaway.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Brilliant, gritty crime fiction
13 Jun 2000
Format:Paperback
Based on this book (the only one of his that I have read so far), Himes is an excellent stylist. The prose is tough and muscular, rough-hewn and perfectly suited to the subject matter. In its own way, it equals the prose of Jim Thompson. Himes' view of a morally-decrepit urban setting is the standard stuff of noir, but seen through a kind of angry be-bop lens. Excellent symbolism is present as well, particularly in the character of the old grandmother, who haunts me still.
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