Customer Reviews

Blind Man With a Pistol (American Crime)

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I've read all of the Chester Himes series and Blind Man is my favorite
While the others are common A to Z yarns, Blind Man's disjointed story and ruthless pace
cause it to transcend the genre Himes created and lift this book to a higher level as Novel

The helter skelter style is why this book is the deepest and makes the most sense.

Love it

Also read God's Country by Percival Everett

I have read almost everything else by Chester Himes and ate up each and everything I've read, especially his detective series. This book, while I was engaged and enjoyed reading it, I often found tedious. Unlike the other novels in this series which are slickly written with a flowing prose, "Blind Man" is jumbled and often difficult to follow because of the clunky prose. The lack of central story line also made it difficult to read. However after saying that, one must keep in mind that the novel's real focus is the random NYC crime and the misery surrounding it, so the style, while difficult to follow, absolutely captures this chaos. Unfortunately, it does not make for an enjoyable read. It is by far the most violent work of his that I've read. I really get the feeling that Himes was just fed up with the whole situation when he wrote this book, as if he really wasn't capable of making it humorous anymore.

Chester Himes spent years analyzing the race question and nobody recognized the fact. The reason was, he disguised his probes into the mysteries of racism in his series of Harlem domestic novels. However, in "Blind Man with a Pistol," he lays all the dark, evil workings of racism out there for us. He renders his two star detectives virtually powerless in a mad riot between three major factions. Like most riots, there are numerous underlying events and themes involved in Himes' riot in this novel. The book is expertly paced and has its moments of humor in the midst of the madness. A wonderful book by a neglected master!

This novel by Chester Himes is basically an example of existentialism old school Harlem style. It may not be for everybody, certainly not for readers who want a clear cut answer at the end of their whodunnits, but I'm pretty sure Kafka and Camus would have approved of Blind Man with a Pistol. Who killed the pants-less man, why did that woman kill that guy, is any one person or organization behind the marches that quickly escalate into riots and looting? Questions such as these are asked, most are not answered definitively. Why not? Because Himes isn't really interested in providing a mystery to be solved. His goal is to make the point that most violence is like a blind man with a pistol, without aim, without strategy, without a point. Tragedies happen because people keep butting into each other. It's the way of the world. I especially liked the final chapter which stands apart from the rest of the book while also representing all that came before it. Personally I would have liked a little more cohesion to the plot, at least one case solved by deductive reasoning. That's a main reason one chooses to read a detective novel after all. But Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are no ordinary detectives, or at least their situation as representatives of the law but also outsiders to it is unique for a crime novel. One could argue that it's actually a sociological and/or philosophical book masquerading as a cops and robbers tale. Coffin and Grave Digger walk the line between white and black worlds and sometimes you may wonder where their loyalty will lie, but the matter is never truly in doubt. They are honest men whose goal is to do their job as permitted to do it, and to keep alive. Sometimes this allows them to catch some bad guys. Other times the bad guys have too much pull to be troubled much by the lowest guys in the legal totem pole. No matter. There's always another case to work on, another corpse on their beat, another reason why someone has to die, but never a particularly reasonable one. A blind man with a pistol doesn't really aim, he just points and fires and whoever gets hit goes down.

This a book by a Black author about Harlem in the 60's. It is not a story, but a series of incidents leading the protagonist, one of a team of Black cops, to conclude "It don't make no sense." It portrays every negative aspect of the community: crime; vice; brutality; ignorance; mindless, purposeless plunging forward.The title character symbolizes the whole enterprise. Is this picture fair or accurate? It overflows with violence. It is not dull, but neither is it pleasant to read.

The difference between the cops and the crooks is the cops keep looking for justice however they come by it while the crooks look for gain. Very well written although dark. An eye openers for those of us who don't know anything about Harlem in the 60's.

For heavens sake, don't read this last book in Himes' Harlem detective series until you have read all the others. This last book is exactly how to kill a series. It's not a whole story at all. It's just three or four utterly unrelated pieces slapped together. Taken on their own, the individual pieces are good enough, and the opening chapter is gripping. The overall impression, however, is that Himes took unrelated pieces written when he was younger and slapped them together to make a final book. The racial politics also grows more radical and trite in this book.

Harlem, a summer in the late 1960s: temperatures are sweltering, and its residents are becoming more agitated and tense, fueled by a series of protests and violent murders that threaten to tear the neighborhood's fragile structure apart. Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, two of NYC's finest detectives, are called upon to solve these crimes and help restore order. The two encounter a variety of odd and unsavory characters, including a preacher who claims to be 100 years old and the father of innumerable children by the "nuns" who share a squalid flat with him, and an inscrutable gay counterman at a restaurant on 125th Street who knows far more than he will admit to. Despite their efforts, the tension and violence progressively escalate, as former allies become hated enemies.

The title of this book refers to Himes' comment about unorganized violence in the black community, fueled by community leaders that urged black men to act, often recklessly. I found this novel to be disjointed and difficult to follow, which made for an unpleasant read. I understand that his earlier novels are better than this one, particularly If He Hollers Let Him Go, so I'll try Himes again in the near future.