The Crazy Kill

Big Joe Pullen is dead and his wake is getting boozy. When the opium-addicted Reverend Short falls out of a window trying to see a thief fleeing the robbed store opposite, his life is saved when he lands in a bread basket, cushioned by the corpse of Valentine Haines. It''s up to detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson to find out who stabbed Valentine - though no one at the wake is keen to say much to the police. Shot through with dry, dark humour, this is Chester Himes at his hardboiled noir best.>

Autorentext
Chester Himes was born in Missouri in 1909. Aged nineteen he was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to twenty-five years in jail, where he began to write short stories. Upon release, he took a variety of jobs while continuing to write fiction. He later moved to Paris where he wrote the first of his Harlem detective novels, A Rage in Harlem, which won the 1957 Grand prix de littérature policière. In 1969 Himes moved to Spain, where he died in 1984.

Zusammenfassung
The greatest find in American crime fiction since Raymond Chandler Sunday Times