A Rage in Harlem - (Harlem Detectives) by Chester Himes (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published as: For love of Imabelle. c1957.

Book Synopsis

A rip-roaring introduction to Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, patrolling New York City's roughest streets in the groundbreaking Harlem Detectives series.

"[This] Harlem saga vies with the novels of David Goodis and Jim Thompson as the inescapable achievement of postwar American crime fiction." --The New York Times

For the love of fine, wily Imabelle, hapless Jackson surrenders his life savings to a con man who knows the secret of turning ten-dollar bills into hundreds--and then he steals from his boss, only to lose the stolen money at a craps table. Luckily for him, he can turn to his savvy twin brother, Goldy, who earns a living--disguised as a Sister of Mercy--by selling tickets to Heaven in Harlem. With Goldy on his side, Jackson is ready for payback.

Review Quotes

"A Rage in Harlem is broadly comic from the get-go, lulling the reader into a state of mirthful ease that makes Himes's sneaky exposé of white prejudice and Black suffering all the more shocking."
--Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Candy House

"Himes undertook to do for Harlem what Raymond Chandler did for Los Angeles."
--Newsweek

"One of the most important American writers of the 20th century. . . . A quirky American genius."
--Walter Mosley

"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

"Himes's Harlem saga vies with the novels of David Goodis and Jim Thompson as the inescapable achievement of postwar American crime fiction."
--The New York Times

About the Author

CHESTER HIMES began his writing career while serving in the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery from 1929 to 1936. 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 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)--featuring two Harlem policemen. As with Himes's earlier work, the series is characterized by violence and grisly, sardonic humor. He died in Spain in 1984.