All Shot Up

 Chester Himes is one of the less famous but well-regarded authors of hard-boiled detective fiction. He is best known for his "Harlem Detective" series that features two Black detectives, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. They write their own rules, but always with the good of the Harlem community at heart. 

This essay by S. A. Cosby in the New York Times, celebrates what Himes' writing meant to so many readers. Publisher Penguin Random House offers this introduction to Himes' career and work. "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." 

They also provide a brief plot summary for this book, the 5th installment in the Harlem Detectives series. "... Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones investigate a series of seemingly unrelated, brutal crimes. A gold Cadillac, about as large as an ocean liner, rocks a woman to the pavement in the cold streets of Harlem. Three goons in cop uniforms heist a small fortune and leave an important politician dead. All told eight bodies stack up over the long, bloody weekend, but they won’t spoil in this weather. And Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson have to follow the trail of brutal violence, perversion, and cold murder—and avoid getting caught in the fray."