Cotton Comes to Harlem
by Chester Himes
Buy on AmazonFrom “the best writer of mayhem yarns since Raymond Chandler” (San Francisco Chronicle) comes a hard-hitting, entertaining entry in the trailblazing Harlem Detectives series about two NYPD detectives who must piece together the clues of the scam of a lifetime. Flim-flam man Deke O’Hara is no sooner out of Atlanta’s state penitentiary than he’s back on the streets working a big scam. As sponsor of the Back-to-Africa movement, he’s counting on a big Harlem rally to produce a massive collection—for his own private charity. But the take is hijacked by white gunmen and hidden in a bale of cotton that suddenly everyone wants to get his hands on.…
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"“Cotton Comes to Harlem” is a dazzling book, and when I was very young “Winnie-the-Pooh” enchanted me."
By the Book: Walter Mosley · nytimes.com