Review: A Rage in Harlem aka For Love of Imabelle by Chester Himes

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Keywords: Harlem Detective series, noir, detective, Black crime authors, detective fiction, crime fiction

CORRECTION: This blog post mistakingly states that Himes never lived in New York City. My research was cursory and inadequate.

If you are in any way a student of detective fiction then you've heard of Chester B. Himes, well known in crime fiction circles for his Harlem Detective series. I've had the first three of this series sitting on my TBR shelf for a couple of years and only picked up A Rage in Harlem (also titled For Love of Imabelle) three days ago. I'm sorry I waited this long because, man, could this guy write.

This is the story of Jackson, a genuinely good, church-going,  and hopelessly square man who finds himself embroiled is a series of increasingly chaotic and deadly events. Things kick off when Jackson falls for a scam only the most gullible would believe, The Blow, where the mark believes that the con man can "raise" a lower denomination bill to a higher one, eg a $10 bill becomes a $100 bill. All Jackson wants is enough money to support the love of his life, Imabelle, in the style she deserves. It goes badly wrong and Jackson steals from his employer, the undertaker H. Exodus Clay, only to lose the money gambling.  Desperate, he turns to his twin brother, Goldy, who runs his own scam dressed as a Sister of Mercy nun selling winning numbers and tickets to heaven. Then things get ever worse for Jackson. Trust me, this doesn't do the plot – which I've read described as surreal and Rube Goldberg-esque – justice.

In the course of Jackson's adventures, Himes delivers a tour of Harlem and its residents in the '50s. His descriptions are vivid and intense. Consider the way he relates the conditions of life in Harlem with the thundering of a train on overhead tracks:

...the train thundered past overhead, shaking the entire tenement city. Shaking the sleeping black people in their lice-ridden beds. Shaking the ancient bones and the aching muscles, and the t.b. lungs and the uneasy foetuses of unwed girls. Shaking plaster from the ceilings, mortar from between the bricks of the building walls. Shaking the rats between the walls, the cockroaches crawling over kitchen sinks and leftover food; shaking the sleeping flies hibernating in lumps like bees behind the casings of the windows. Shaking the fat, blood-filled bedbugs crawling over black skin. Shaking the fleas, making them hop. Shaking the sleeping dogs in their filthy pallets, the sleeping cats, the clogged toilets, loosing the filth.

That is searing imagery. Something interesting to me about Himes' tour of Harlem, is that he never lived in Harlem, or even NYC. He was born in Missouri, lived and served prison time in Ohio, moved to California, and ended up as an ex-pat living in Europe. I need to get a biography of Himes and find out what drew him to Harlem.
UPDATE
Himes did live in New York on two occasions, 1944/1945 and 1955. His Harlem Detective series was written while he lived abroad.
/UPDATE

A Rage in Harlem is Jackson's story but it introduces Himes' two memorable colored detectives, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. These guys are great. Here is how they are introduced:

Grave Digger stood on the right side of the front end of the line, at the entrance to the Savoy. Coffin Ed stood on the left side of line, at the rear end. Grave Digger had his pistol aimed south, in a straight line down the sidewalk. On the other side, Coffin Ed had his pistol aimed north, in a straight line. ...Whenever anyone moved out of line, Grave Digger would shout, "Straighten up!" and Coffin Ed would echo , "Count off!" If the offender didn't straighten up the line immediately, one of the detectives would shoot into the air. ...Folks in Harlem believed that Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson would shoot a man stone dead for not standing straight in line.

I'm not sure how to describe Himes' writing style except to say as I read him, I "feel" some Elmore Leonard, some Raymond Chandler, some Jim Thompson. He's really, really good and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, The Real Cool Killers. You can get it here at Amazon.

This is the first book in my project to work through the series I have been saving to read until I have all the books. I'm starting with the first couple of book in each series to see if I want to continue.

Next up, something different, Malcolm Pryce's fantasy noir, Aberystwyth Mon Amour.