The Penguin Podcast is back! Listen Now
The Real Cool Killers

The Real Cool Killers

Summary

'The toughest crime stories in print' Sunday Times

The night's over for Ulysses Galen. It started going bad for the big Greek when a knife was drawn, then there was an axe, then he was being chased and shot at. Now Galen is lying dead in the middle of a Harlem street. But the night's just beginning for detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. Because they have a smoking gun but it couldn't have killed Galen, and they had a suspect but a gang called the Real Cool Moslems took him. And as patrol cars and search teams descend on the neighbourhood, their case threatens to take a turn for the personal.

The Real Cool Killers is loaded with grizzly comedy and with all the raucous, threatening energy of the streets it's set on.

Reviews

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

About the author

Chester Himes

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.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more