A worthy heir to hard-boiled mystery fiction is Chester Himes, whose uneven Harlem detective novels feature two very tough black plain-clothes policemen, known by their sobriquets: Grave Digger and Coffin Ed. Only the first of the series was initially published in the US, as FOR LOVE OF IMABELLE, later reprinted as A RAGE IN HARLEM. The rest were first published in France. For me, the first is by far the best, although I remember also liking THE HEAT'S ON.
I'm aware of a couple of movies from his novels: A RAGE IN HARLEM which seemed outright bad to me (perhaps because the book remained so vivid in my mind). Also COTTON COMES TO HARLEM which I barely recall, but which I remember thinking mediocre, as opposed to worse than mediocre. But then, the source novel isn't so great either.
I read an interview with Himes by John A. Williams, "My Man Himes," in AMISTAD I. Himes had long been an expatriate, living in Spain at the time of the interview. Williams commented admiringly on how well Himes reproduced Harlem's geography in these novels
It's because the Harlem in these novels resembles the nowhere towns of Leonard, and of Hammet's less famous novels, even though it's a part of NYC, that I thought to mention the series. White characters, and white America, make only rare appearances, and official corruption doesn't figure, at least in my recollection.
Never read Himes. A Rage in Harlem was unmemorable, and I don't remember Cotton Comes to Harlem at all. I might or might not have seen it.
In a similar vein, I would endorse Walter Mosely, who has also done TV work. I loved the Devil With a Blue Dress movie to death. I wish there had been four or five more Easy Rawlins films with the Don Cheadle character.
I thought DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS was an entertaining movie and it would be great to see more of Washington in this role. I can't recall if I read the book or any of his other books; I generally stopped reading genre literature (unless confined to bed with an illness) in 1984, when I went overseas with a few great works stashed in my suitcase.
The film adaptation of COTTON COMES TO HARLEM was a slightly earlier instance of Blaxploitation avant la lettre; before SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG and SHAFT.
You don't mention Walter Mosely, in particular his Easy Rawlins series about a Black PI in postwar LA. The later books declined to comfort reading (if you were familiar with the characters) but before that point, they achieved a high level. I discovered them from the movie "Devil in a Blue Dress", starring Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle.
Gutter drift ?
Mate listen
It Can be macro navigated
By a savy party in power
Alas
where's that grail ?
A worthy heir to hard-boiled mystery fiction is Chester Himes, whose uneven Harlem detective novels feature two very tough black plain-clothes policemen, known by their sobriquets: Grave Digger and Coffin Ed. Only the first of the series was initially published in the US, as FOR LOVE OF IMABELLE, later reprinted as A RAGE IN HARLEM. The rest were first published in France. For me, the first is by far the best, although I remember also liking THE HEAT'S ON.
I'm aware of a couple of movies from his novels: A RAGE IN HARLEM which seemed outright bad to me (perhaps because the book remained so vivid in my mind). Also COTTON COMES TO HARLEM which I barely recall, but which I remember thinking mediocre, as opposed to worse than mediocre. But then, the source novel isn't so great either.
I read an interview with Himes by John A. Williams, "My Man Himes," in AMISTAD I. Himes had long been an expatriate, living in Spain at the time of the interview. Williams commented admiringly on how well Himes reproduced Harlem's geography in these novels
It's because the Harlem in these novels resembles the nowhere towns of Leonard, and of Hammet's less famous novels, even though it's a part of NYC, that I thought to mention the series. White characters, and white America, make only rare appearances, and official corruption doesn't figure, at least in my recollection.
Never read Himes. A Rage in Harlem was unmemorable, and I don't remember Cotton Comes to Harlem at all. I might or might not have seen it.
In a similar vein, I would endorse Walter Mosely, who has also done TV work. I loved the Devil With a Blue Dress movie to death. I wish there had been four or five more Easy Rawlins films with the Don Cheadle character.
I thought DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS was an entertaining movie and it would be great to see more of Washington in this role. I can't recall if I read the book or any of his other books; I generally stopped reading genre literature (unless confined to bed with an illness) in 1984, when I went overseas with a few great works stashed in my suitcase.
The film adaptation of COTTON COMES TO HARLEM was a slightly earlier instance of Blaxploitation avant la lettre; before SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG and SHAFT.
Another Himes I enjoyed long ago, and that might be worth reading, is PINKTOES. It's a comedy of manners on black/white sex. You can read the first 30-odd pages at https://www.google.com/books/edition/Pinktoes/bhyt2BZ9RhEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA7&printsec=frontcover or the whole thing, with a free registration, at https://archive.org/details/pinktoesnovel00hime/mode/1up. For that matter, FOR LOVE OF IMABELLE is also on the Internet Archive, at https://archive.org/details/forloveofimabell0000hime/mode/1up.
You don't mention Walter Mosely, in particular his Easy Rawlins series about a Black PI in postwar LA. The later books declined to comfort reading (if you were familiar with the characters) but before that point, they achieved a high level. I discovered them from the movie "Devil in a Blue Dress", starring Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle.
Yup I mentioned that in a comment thread. I have a few Mosely books sitting around that I have to remember to get into.
I gotta learn to read for comprehension better, or maybe skim less.