All Shot Up

“You can’t pay for one death by another one. Salvation ain’t the swapping market.”

“It was ten minutes by foot, if you were on your way to church, about two and a half minutes if your old lady was chasing you with a razor.”

Coffin Ed punching the first three witnesses in line at the bar! The next person talked, I tell you what!😀 Just two hard hitting cops that don't take any guff from anyone! That's why I enjoy this series so much, and that's why I liked this book so much too! The dialogue, the action, and the food! It just feels like reading about a time and a place that had a beat and a world all of its own.

And this book has quite a lot! A gold-finished Cadillac, a hit-and-run, and a shooting. And police who aren’t show more police! AND, a headless motorcycle driver! Total of 8 victims in the ‘Casper caper’!

“You knew what kind of man he is when you were risking me and everybody else to save him.” show less

I've enjoyed other books in the Harlem Cycle and was quite prepared for Himes's blacker than black hardboiled Noir serving of extreme violence and racism, soulless criminals and murderers, white racist cops using the 'N' word, corrupt politicians (in this case married and sleeping with young men), whores, easy women and weirdos of all kinds, with Harlem's tough detective duo Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones in the lead, and truly madcap plotting; a combination that made me squirm in the past, but which was served up with plenty of humour and made the whole mix work for me somehow. But this story, centred as it was around a community of gay black men with everything to hide and plenty of homophobic digs made me especially uneasy. show more The plot was as madcap as ever and more than ever confusing to me. There were men posing as women and a women posing as a men which made it all the harder to follow, and if there was humour there I failed to detect it. Still, it was Chester Himes, and he knew how to keep a story going, so I cannot say it ever got boring, which kept me from feeling like I was wasting my time. Seems I've been listening to them out of order since Audible and GR can't agree on that, but I'll keep going with this series and see where else he goes with it. The audiobooks narrated by Dion Graham are excellent. show less

First Chester Himes book I read, fucking crazy stuff with a golden Cadillac cruising the streets, hit'n'runs and headless bodies, transvestites strutting in clubs, the ever violent Gravedigger Jones and Ed Coffin Johnson busting up crime rings etc. On reflection though not one of his best works, but still gave me the taste for more.

There are some things about Himes' novels you can always count on: unusual characters; witty, snappy, very colourful dialogues; a lot of action. "All Shot Up" is no difference and this is why I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it in spite the story was in fact quite disappointing.

I'm sorry to say this, because I seriously love Himes' work, but the plot was very sketchy and didn't really stay together. There are a lot of places, especially in the first part of the novel and up to its middle, where you get quite a lot of breathtaking action (like the chasing of the joker on the sidecar), but that action adds nothing to the story. Which is really a shame.

Past the middle of the novel, the plot seems to straighten up. Characters took up a sense, and show more they became more like the characters I know Himes can create: tough, weaked, ruthless. I like how all the characters play their own game, knowing fully well what game all the other characters are playing. This was one of the things I liked the most. But then the plot resolves in something quite unlikely. Many threads seemed to end into nothing. Yes, you can reconstruct what happened, but I wasn't all that sure it made a lot of sense.
Really a shame.

But it was an engaging read, if not fully satisfying. I'd just say, if you've never read any of Himes' novels, maybe try another one first. "Rage in Harlem" is fantastic. show less

A good mystery with great Harlem atmosphere.

It's crazy, man. Crazy.

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So you think Shaft was the baddest cat in Harlem? Well long before Richard Roundtree ever donned a black vinyl driving coat, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson were keeping it cool when things got hot.