The Heat's On

With a new Introduction by Noel 'Razor' Smith

Detectives Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones have lost two criminals. Pinky ran off – but it shouldn't be hard to track down a giant albino in Harlem. Jake the dwarf drug dealer, though, isn't coming back – he died after Grave Digger punched him in the stomach. And the dwarf's death might cost them both their badges. Unless they can track down the cause of all this mayhem – like the African with his throat slit and the dog the size of a lion with an open head wound.

Chester Himes's hardboiled tales of Harlem have a barely contained chaos and a visceral, macabre edge all their own.