Cotton Comes to Harlem

by Chester Himes

Book Overview

A classic entry in Chester Himes's trailblazing Harlem Detectives series, Cotton Comes to Harlem is one of his hardest-hitting and most entertaining thrillers.

Flim-flam man Deke O'Hara is no sooner out of Atlanta's state penitentiary than he's back on the streets working the scam of a lifetime. As sponsor of the Back-to-Africa movement, he's counting on a big Harlem rally to produce a massive collection--for his own private charity. But the take is hijacked by white gunmen and hidden in a bale of cotton that suddenly everyone wants to get his hands on. As NYPD detectives "Coffin Ed" Johnson and "Grave Digger" Jones piece together the complexity of the scheme, we are treated to Himes's brand of hard-boiled crime fiction at its very best.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394759990
• ISBN13: 9780394759999
• Release Date: November 1988
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Read "rage" First

This novel has some of the same characters as Himes' Rage in Harlem. This is not a sequel and it is not imperitve that you read "Rage" first, but I think that you will like this book more if you have read about Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones in the early novel.

As gritty as Ellroy and as clever as Parker

... The book doesn't concern Bible Flowers. It's about the efforts of two black detectives, "Grave Digger" Jones and "Coffin Ed" Johnson, to recover $87,000 in money stolen from a con-man/storefront preacher in 1960s Harlem. Along the way, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed encounter a few murders, a southern colonel, and a 50-pound bale of cotton.Raymond Chandler wrote that detectives must walk the mean streets, but they must not themselves be mean. Well, Grave Digger and Coffin Ed walk the mean streets just fine, but the "not being mean" part gives them trouble; they doubt the feasibility of solving a case without, say, slapping around a few witnesses or firing a few shots into a crowd. Despite the detectives' unhesitating brutality, this novel compares well to the best of Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker. This is due not only to the spot-on dialogue and the stark, vivid character depictions, but also the detectives' uncompromising determination to bring justice to Harlem. The plot is better, i.e., less predictable, than any of Parker's, and Himes's depiction of 1960s Harlem is so bizarre, yet compelling, that it invites comparison to Carl Hiassen's Florida rather than Chandler's LA. Add to this Himes's unique, excruciatingly honest depiction of race relations in the 1960s, and you have one of the best detective novels I have read in years....

Chester Himes at His Best

As a mystery writer with my debut novel in its initial release, I genuinely admire the works of Chester Himes. I consider COTTON COMES TO HARLEM his finest work. Deke O'Hara is a recently freed con man, and his con of a lifetime has gone bad. His take has been highjacked, and our tough urban cops Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are on his tail (as well as the tail of everyone else involved in the con and the highjacking of the small fortune). Himes writes terrific dialog, and he captures his setting perfectly. His characters are vivdly drawn, and his plot is a fastmoving steameroller taking many unexpected twists and turns. COTTON COMES TO HARLEM is THE BOOK by Chester Himes that every mystery reader ought to read.

One Of The Very Best By Chester Himes.

Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are New York City police detectives assigned to Harlem. Both are highly valued by their boss for their unique skills and much respected by law-abiding Harlem residents who delight in describing their real and imagined exploits. Grave Digger and Coffin Ed make good use of a wide network of stool pigeons personally developed by them. There is very little waste in this book. The dialogue and descriptions are convincing. The writing is loaded with humor. I found it hard to put down from the beginning.