Chester Himes

From the acclaimed author of the Harlem Detectives series, a powerful autobiographical novel about a black family tortured by colorism as it strives to live up to the myth of the Black middle class in white, post-war America Lillian Taylor has three sons, a comfortable house, and a well-liked...

From the acclaimed author of the Harlem Detectives series, a masterful autobiographical novel about the injustices of the prison system and the humanity that flourishes despite it Jimmy Monroe is serving a twenty-year sentence for robbery. Terror and chaos reign in the prison, where corrupt...

New York is sweltering in the summer heat, and Harlem is close to the boiling point....

Con man Deak O'Hara is out of the state penitentiary and back on the street working the scam of a lifetime....

An explosive and shocking hardboiled classic that explores the shadowy underbelly of New York as a urban civil war erupts on the side streets of Harlem....

From the start, nothing goes fright for Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones. They are disciplined for use of excessive force. Grave Digger is shot and his death announced in a hoax radio bulletin....

Outside the apartment where a wake is going on, the manager of the A&P across the street is robbed....

A golden Cadillac big enough to cross the ocean has been seen sailing along the streets of Harlem. A hit-and-run victim's been hit so hard she got embedded in the wall of a convent....

Many people had reasons for killing Galen, a big Greek with too much money and too great a liking for young black girls....