Mystery Review: A Rage in Harlem introduced Chester Himes' tough, no-nonsense police detectives, Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson, though they only act as supporting players in the novel. Unlike most detective novels, we rarely live in their minds and spend much more time with other characters. The book is well written, cleverly plotted, and fast paced to the point of bedlam. The controlled chaos in A Rage in Harlem is as good as I've ever read. Many authors, even skilled ones, can lose the thread when writing about mayhem and the writing becomes dark and hard to see. But not so with Mr. Himes. He can juggle no end of craziness. Himes also makes 1950's Harlem come alive as Raymond Chandler did with his L.A. backstreets. Although written in 1957, Himes never loses sight of the societal position of his mostly black characters: "Below the surface, in the murky waters of fetid tenements, a city of black people who are convulsed in desperate living, like the voracious churning of millions of hungry cannibal fish ... . That is Harlem." There may be criminals here, and good people tempted to crime, but the why is never far from the page. Recently saw the film, which has the same characters but the plot veers far from the book; worth seeing, enjoyed the visuals, but the book was better. Before Walter Mosely there was Chester Himes, an author who also wrote mysteries which were tough detective stories, who was too little known, too little read. A Rage in Harlem is a brilliant beginning. [4★]
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