Blind Man With a Pistol [Hardcover]

Chester Himes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1969

New York is sweltering in the summer heat, and Harlem is dose to the boiling point. To Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, at times it seems as if the whole world has gone mad. Trying, as always, to keep some kind of peace-their legendary nickel-plated Colts very much in evidence-Coffin Ed and Grave Digger find themselves pursuing two completely different cases through a maze of knifings, beatings, and riots that threaten to tear Harlem apart.

"The word is out on the street, and the hopheads and whores and flimflam artists are running scared: Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are back in print."-- Newsweek

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

New York is sweltering in the summer heat, and Harlem is dose to the boiling point. To Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, at times it seems as if the whole world has gone mad. Trying, as always, to keep some kind of peace-their legendary nickel-plated Colts very much in evidence-Coffin Ed and Grave Digger find themselves pursuing two completely different cases through a maze of knifings, beatings, and riots that threaten to tear Harlem apart.

"The word is out on the street, and the hopheads and whores and flimflam artists are running scared: Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are back in print."-- Newsweek --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (June 1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688011659
• ISBN-13: 978-0688011659
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,130,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gritty NYC, July 21, 2010

By 

Read to Think "Read To Think" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blind Man with a Pistol (Paperback)

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

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not his best, August 11, 2004

By 

Bryan Miller "Bryan Miller" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blind Man with a Pistol (Paperback)

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Existentialism old school Harlem style, May 12, 2011

By 

Roy Pickering "Roy L. Pickering Jr. - Author ... (NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blind Man with a Pistol (Paperback)

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.