Plan B - (Harlem Detectives) by Chester Himes (Paperback)

About the Book

"The final, posthumous installment of the ground-breaking Harlem Detectives series, a novel of explosive, apocalyptic violence, and a startling vision of the effects of racism in America. The roots of racism and persecution in Tomsson Black's ancestry are deep and staggering. In his own lifetime, his misfortunes have become unbearable and, as they mount, serve as an impetus for a final and cataclysmic act of vengeance-the violent overthrow of white society. When acclaimed crime writer Chester Himes died in Spain in 1984, it was rumored that an unfinished story in the Harlem Detective series existed that had all but extinguished his heroes and their fraught city in an explosive paroxysm of racial strife. Completed from his notes by Michel Fabre and Robert E. Skinner, Plan B is that harrowing story"--

Book Synopsis

The final, posthumous installment of the ground-breaking Harlem Detectives series: a novel of explosive, apocalyptic violence, and a startling vision of the effects of racism in America

Tomsson Black is a revolutionary planning to overthrow white society. Generation after generation of Tomsson's family have faced insidious, racist persecution, and Tomsson's own experience has been no exception. But he was born a fighter, and he's taking matters into his own hands with a final, cataclysmic act of vengeance.

Around the time that acclaimed author Chester Himes died in 1984, it was rumored that another Harlem Detectives novel existed, one that remained unfinished. When the manuscript was found, edited, and published first in France, it was widely regarded as a masterwork. Completed from the author's notes by two editors, Michel Fabre and Robert E. Skinner, who also introduce this edition, Plan B is an excoriating statement about the deep, corrosive effects of racism and an apocalyptic vision of Black rebellion that thrusts Himes's cherished detectives directly into the fray.

Review Quotes

Praise for Chester Himes's Harlem Detectives series

"One of the most important American writers of the twentieth century. . . . A quirky American genius." --Walter Mosley

"His implacable drive to examine the Black experience, the disingenuous nature of the American Dream, the reality of pain and sorrow and what it does to the soul, that is what makes [Himes] the bard of the existential African American psyche." --S. A. Cosby

About the Author

Chester Himes began his writing career while serving in the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery from 1929 to 1936. From his first novel, If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), Himes dealt with the social and psychological repercussions of being black in a white-dominated society. Beginning in 1953, Himes moved to Europe, where he met and was strongly influenced by Richard Wright. It was in France that he began his best-known series of crime novels--including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1965)--featuring two Harlem policemen. As with Himes's earlier work, the series is characterized by violence and grisly, sardonic humor. He died in Spain in 1984.