From Publishers Weekly
Firmly rooted in the hard-boiled tradition, these 13 stories from Phillips (Bangers, etc.) showcase the cool exuberance of black Los Angeles PI Ivan Monk, whose family connections tend to prod him into taking cases no one in his right mind would investigate. Nostalgia is a recurrent theme, as in "Through the Fog Softly," which introduces Monk's father, Josiah Monk, as a soldier in Korea, and in Monk's love of 1950s and '60s cars. Some tales verge on fantasy, such as "The King Alfred Plan," which imagines a scheme to round up blacks into concentration camps. A pseudo-screenplay, "Bring Me the Head of Osama Bin-Laden," is the weakest effort in an otherwise strong collection. At his best, Monk displays something of the cockiness of Robert Parker's Spenser and the racial awareness of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins. Monk has a toughness all his own, however, and a noir sensibility shines brightly in stories like "Lowball" and "The Raiders."
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
That Phillips' four Ivan Monk novels have never gained the audience they deserve remains one of the great injustices in mystery publishing. Monk's sense of absurdity and his perfectly emulsified blend of toughness and tenderness make him one of crime fiction's most appealing heroes--not simply one of the most appealing African American heroes, as he is too often pigeonholed. The tone in these 13 stories (12 starring Monk) is overall a bit lighter than in the novels, but Phillips' eye for the political, social, and human realities of life in L.A.'s inner city remains as sharp as ever. The best stories in the collection show new sides of the writer: "53 Buick" flawlessly mixes crime and fantasy, and "Through the Fog, Softly" (starring Monk's father and set during the Korean War) introduces a hint of horror. A fine collection from a tireless small publisher who does a superb job of keeping overlooked but top-notch hard-boiled writers in print. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
