'The toughest crime stories in print' Sunday Times 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 ...
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'The toughest crime stories in print' Sunday Times 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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Add this copy of The Real Cool Killers to cart. $3.98, fair condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published by Berkley Publishing Corp.
Add this copy of The Real Cool Killers to cart. $6.23, very good condition, Sold by Magers and Quinn Booksellers rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Minneapolis, MN, UNITED STATES, published 1988 by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.
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Add this copy of The Real Cool Killers to cart. $6.50, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1988 by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.
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From its beginnings in detective magazines and pulp fiction, American noir developed into literature of varied people and places. Chester Himes (1909 --1984) was one of the first African Americans to write noir. Imprisoned as a young man,Himes spent much of his life in France where he created a series involving two African American detectives, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, with a beat in Harlem. Some of the novels in the series were first published in French as Himes remained relatively unknown in his native land.
Published in 1959, "The Real Cool Killers" was the third of the series. Unlike some noir, the book is in part a who-done-it, as Jones and Johnson try to find the killer of one Ulysses Galen, a white salesman of a brand of soft drink, on a busy Harlem street. The plot becomes contrived with a number of surprising twists. The interest in the book lies much less in the plot than in the creation of atmosphere at the heart of noir writing. Himes understands and portrays Harlem and its people. The book frequently is sharply penetrating, descriptive, tragic, or bitingly funny. He is perceptive in developing his characters beyond sterotypes. And his writing is full of memorable passages and one-liners.
A good deal of the novel is set in a Harlem bar, the Dew Drop Inn, where Galen is a rare white patron. The bartender, Big Smiley, sets the tone of the establishment. The story opens with a large fight scene at the Dew Drop in involving Galen, Big Smiley, and a third individual who displays enormous and unexplained anger towards Galen. When Galen flees the establishment he is mysteriously gunned down on the street. The two detective heroes search for the killer.
The characters include a gang of teenagers led by "Shiek" who dress as Arabs together with Shiek's two young girlfriends. Among the other characters are several policemen, at all levels of the NYPD, a number of suspects, a madam, and a pimp.
As the novel develops, sadistic sex comes to play a major role. Yet, Himes portrays most of his characters with substantial care. With the exception of the villain, they are nuanced and not wholly good or evil. Jones and Johnson are shown as dedicated and intelligent law enforcement officers, but they often use violence, intimidation, and brutality to get their way. The white detectives and offices are likewise shown as varied human beings, with strong prejudices that accompany their virtues. In some comic scenes, the officers are almost unbelievably stupid. Yet things haltingly fall into place.
The main character of the book is Harlem which is portrayed realistically and unsentimenally in all its rawness. Himes captures Harlem's poverty, vice, and simmering rage, rather than a literary Harlem or a Harlem for visitors. The book also portrays sharp racial tension and oppression, with distrust and prejudice among both white and African American people. Sharp racial epithets and stereotyping occur throughout the book.
Himes' novel portrays a place and shows the effect of prejudice and poverty as well as telling a gripping story. It evocatively presents a Harlem noir. I was reminded of a contemporary African American writer of noir, Walter Mosley who has written several different series of crime novels, the most famous of which is the Easy Rawlins series, set in California. It includes the novel, "Devil in a Blue Dress" which in its setting bears some resemblance to "The Real Cool Killers". Himes' novel is available in the single edition I am reviewing here and in a compilation of American noir from the 1950s Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s: The Killer Inside Me / The Talented Mr. Ripley / Pick-up / Down There / The Real Cool Killers (Library of America) (Vol 2) published by the Library of America. It will be of interest to readers of African American literature and to readers of noir.
