In this gripping installment of the maverick Harlem Detectives series, Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones investigate a series of seemingly unrelated, brutal crimes.
Bodies are dropping in the streets of Harlem, but in the bitter winter cold, they won’t spoil. A witness sees a Cadillac that looks as though it’s made of solid gold hurl an old woman to the street before peeling off. A shoot-out in front of a bar kills two and puts a politician in a coma. Not to mention that a whole lot of money has vanished into thin air. Now detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson have to squeeze the surprising truth out of sparse facts and get to the bottom of this explosive mystery. All Shot Up is an exhilarating ride through hard-boiled Harlem that only Chester Himes could have accomplished.
Praise for Chester Himes's Harlem Detectives series
“[The stories in Himes’s] Harlem detective series . . . are remarkable for their macabre comic sense and wicked and nasty wit.” —Ishmael Reed, Los Angeles Times
“Chester Himes is to writing what Miles Davis is to the trumpet, what John Coltrane is to the saxophone, what lips are to love.” —Nikki Giovanni
“Every one of his beyond-cool Harlem novels is cherished by every reader who finds it.” —Jonathan Lethem
Chester (Bomar) Himes began his writing career while serving in the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery from 1929 - 1936. His account of the horrific 1930 Penitentiary fire that killed over three hundred men appeared in Esquire in 1932 and from this Himes was able to get other work published. From his first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), Himes dealt with the social and psychological repercussions of being black in a white-dominated society. Beginning in 1953, Himes moved to Europe, where he lived as an expatriate in France and Spain. There, he met and was strongly influenced by Richard Wright. It was in France that he began his best-known series of crime novels---including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965) and Run Man Run (1966)---featuring two Harlem policemen Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. As with Himes's earlier work, the series is characterized by violence and grisly, sardonic humor.
View titles by Chester Himes
In this gripping installment of the maverick Harlem Detectives series, Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones investigate a series of seemingly unrelated, brutal crimes.
Bodies are dropping in the streets of Harlem, but in the bitter winter cold, they won’t spoil. A witness sees a Cadillac that looks as though it’s made of solid gold hurl an old woman to the street before peeling off. A shoot-out in front of a bar kills two and puts a politician in a coma. Not to mention that a whole lot of money has vanished into thin air. Now detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson have to squeeze the surprising truth out of sparse facts and get to the bottom of this explosive mystery. All Shot Up is an exhilarating ride through hard-boiled Harlem that only Chester Himes could have accomplished.
Reviews
Praise for Chester Himes's Harlem Detectives series
“[The stories in Himes’s] Harlem detective series . . . are remarkable for their macabre comic sense and wicked and nasty wit.” —Ishmael Reed, Los Angeles Times
“Chester Himes is to writing what Miles Davis is to the trumpet, what John Coltrane is to the saxophone, what lips are to love.” —Nikki Giovanni
“Every one of his beyond-cool Harlem novels is cherished by every reader who finds it.” —Jonathan Lethem
Chester (Bomar) Himes began his writing career while serving in the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery from 1929 - 1936. His account of the horrific 1930 Penitentiary fire that killed over three hundred men appeared in Esquire in 1932 and from this Himes was able to get other work published. From his first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), Himes dealt with the social and psychological repercussions of being black in a white-dominated society. Beginning in 1953, Himes moved to Europe, where he lived as an expatriate in France and Spain. There, he met and was strongly influenced by Richard Wright. It was in France that he began his best-known series of crime novels---including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965) and Run Man Run (1966)---featuring two Harlem policemen Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. As with Himes's earlier work, the series is characterized by violence and grisly, sardonic humor.
View titles by Chester Himes
