# The Essential Harlem Detectives: A Rage in Harlem, the Real Cool Killers, the Crazy Kill, Cotton Comes to Harlem - Hardcover

by **Chester Himes** (Author), **S. A. Cosby** (Introduction by)

**_The New York Times Book Review_ Editors' Choice - A one-volume selection of four novels in the legendary detective series--blistering, groundbreaking capers set in Harlem's criminal underworld--by master crime writer Chester Himes. With an introduction by _New York Times_ bestselling author S.A. Cosby.**

"\[Himes\] put a spin on crime fiction--emphasizing urban atmosphere, street smarts, and uptown carryings-on--unlike anything the genre had previously seen." --_The Boston Globe_

**"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**_

"His implacable drive to examine the Black experience, the disingenuous nature of the American Dream, the reality of pain and sorrow and what it does to the soul, that is what makes \[Himes\] the bard of the existential African American psyche." --S.A. Cosby, from his Introduction  
Here in one volume is an exceptional selection from Chester Himes's acclaimed Harlem Detectives series. Winner of France's prestigious Grand Prix de Litt駻ature Polici鑽e and lauded by Jean Cocteau as a "prodigious masterpiece," _A Rage in Harlem_ introduces detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson in a searing escapade. In _The Real Cool Killers_, the duo investigates a shooting and discovers an unsettling personal connection. In _The Crazy Kill_, a man is found in a breadbasket, stabbed to death, leaving Himes's detectives to find out who among the many suspects did it. And in _Cotton Comes to Harlem_, the brazen robbery of a notorious con man running a back-to-Africa scam sets off a hunt for a bale of Southern cotton. These masterful novels exhibit Himes's evocative, baroque descriptions of Black life in Harlem and his famously blistering social commentary.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

**"The best writer of mayhem yarns since Raymond Chandler." --__San Francisco Chronicle__**

### Author Biography

CHESTER HIMES began his writing career in 1932 while serving in the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery. In 1953, Himes moved to Europe, and it was in France that he began his popular series of crime novels featuring two Harlem policemen. In 1958, he won France's prestigious Grand Priz de Litt駻ature Polic鑽e. He died in Spain in 1984.

S. A. COSBY is the award-winning, _New York Times_ best-selling author of _All the Sinners Bleed_, _Razorblade Tears,_ and _Blacktop Wasteland_, the last of which won the _Los Angeles Times_ Book Prize, was a _New York Times_ Notable Book, and was named a best book of the year by NPR_, The Guardian,_ and _Library Journal,_ among others.

**Number of Pages:** 712

**Dimensions:** 1.6 x 8.2 x 5.2 IN

**Publication Date:** February 06, 2024

## Details

- **Price:** 35.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 35.00 USD | In stock |

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- The Essential Harlem Detectives: A Rage in Harlem, the Real Cool Killers, the Crazy Kill, Cotton Comes to Harlem - Hardcover

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