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Review
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 )
Product Description
The night's over for Ulysses Galen. It started going bad for the big Greek when a knife was drawn, then there was an axe, then he was being chased and shot at. Now Galen is lying dead in the middle of a Harlem street. But the night's just beginning for detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. Because they have a smoking gun but it couldn't have killed Galen, and they had a suspect but a gang called the Real Cool Moslems took him. And as patrol cars and search teams descend on the neighbourhood, their case threatens to take a turn for the personal.
The Real Cool Killers is loaded with grizzly comedy and with all the raucous, threatening energy of the streets it's set on.
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Customer Reviews
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.
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.
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.
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.
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