
The Crazy Kill
A Grave Digger & Coffin Ed Novel
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Narrated by:
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Dion Graham
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By:
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Chester Himes
Outside the apartment where a wake is going on, the manager of the A&P across the street is robbed. Reverend Short, a storefront preacher addicted to opium and brandy, is watching from a bedroom window in the flat. He leans out too far and falls, but a huge bread basket, sitting outside the bakery below, saves him. Back inside, he says he sees a vision of a dead man. Outside, in the very basket Short landed in, lies the body of Valentine Haines. Who murdered Val? It is up to Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson to find out.
©1959 Chester Himes, copyright renewed 1987 by Lesley Himes (P)2011 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
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I loved the setting, and the characters. It is a window into the past, and into a different culture, and life. I loved that. Everything was well written.
Let me address the comment about the detectives not doing much. The narrator takes us into the lives of the suspects more than I'm used to in a hard boiled mystery. Normally, there we follow the detectives and maybe get a scene or two without the detective. However, Himes takes more time with the suspects and their lives. I feel this offered me the chance to be the detective. Readers always try to figure out the killer. However, I often feel I'm passive in that task as I'm following a sleuth. In this novel, I felt more that i needed to be more engaged with trying to figure out the killer.
The reader: This was an audio book read by Dion Graham. Well he's just excellent. All of his voices are solid. I liked his voice for Johnny; it was a bit misleading, which was fantastic. He's a great reader and I recommend any book by him.
Recommended: Yes, this is a solid mystery, set in an interesting place, during an interesting time. I felt transported back, and I got to learn about Harlem, just a tad.
Wonderful!
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What did you love best about The Crazy Kill?
I love the writing best about The Crazy Kill. Himes has a superb sense of character, dialogue, and plot. He is a master at crime fiction. Ian Fleming of 007 fame admired his work.What did you like best about this story?
I love the store front preacher. He kept us guessing whether or not he was an inspired prophet or crazy.What about Dion Graham’s performance did you like?
Graham gave a masterful performance of numerous characters with Harlem dialects.Any additional comments?
Listen to this book and the entire series on Audible.Crazy Thrill
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slow start, nice story
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Every Day is a journey. Need complete rules
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The mystery itself, which is fun, is almost beside the point. It's really about getting lost in the rich characters and world of Chester Himes's Harlem.
He has such a tight and clean prose style and he is able to build such vivid atmosphere with it that you almost feel like you can smell the streets or see the characters as they're talking.
If you're looking for crime fiction that is fun, character driven and feels like it comes alive as you read it, you can't do better than this series.
Elmore Leonard before there was Elmore Leonard
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As for the story its self its a quick read but overall I thought the story was just okay as soon as the scene was set up very early in the book I figured out who did it and it was pretty easy to see why. I like mysteries but I dont like this style because you never really get to know any of the characters or really care what happens to them
quick and easy who done it
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loved it!
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The stories aren’t procedurals. They often spend as much time with the suspects as they do with Coffin Ed & Gravedigger. The characters are well-written, elevating them above stereotypes of their professions. This is a benefit of an insiders view. And we the readers and listeners are the beneficiaries.
I highly recommend this book and series to fans of hard boiled fiction. Or to those looking for a new mystery series.
Great hard boiled mystery story
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Another fun romp into the 60s Harlem of Chester Himes, where gambling, booze, women, and strange characters are mingled in unique ways. There's plenty of violence in this hardboiled series, but plenty of humour too. I didn't expect this book to be as good as the first one, A Rage in Harlem, especially as read by Samuel L. Jackson, but Dion Graham is a great narrator and the story and narration held their own and definitely made me want to discover the next instalment of the Harlem Cycle.
This is One Crazy Bunch!
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You can feel the 60s black noir
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