Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work Finalist for the PEN America/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography The definitive biography o

“[A] smart, conscientious, often stylish biography” of the great African American crime writer of the mid-twentieth century (The New York Times). Best known

The Writings of Chester Himes are colored by a fascinating blend of hatred and tenderness, of hard-boiled realism and generous idealism. His life was complex, h

"There could not be a fitter time or place for the publication of this great prison novel than today's United States." --H. Bruce Franklin, The Nation

From “the best writer of mayhem yarns since Raymond Chandler” (San Francisco Chronicle) comes a hard-hitting, entertaining entry in the trailblazing Harlem