**From "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. As NYPD detectives "Coffin
Ed" Johnson and "Grave Digger" Jones face the complexity of the scheme,
we are treated to Himes's brand of hard-boiled crime fiction at its very
best.