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Harlem Cycle #4
The Big Gold Dream
Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, two Black police detectives, investigate when a woman worshiper mysteriously dies at a revival meeting led by Sweet Prophet, a charismatic con man
156 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
27 people are currently reading
578 people want to read
About the author
Chester Himes
122 books484 followersChester Bomar Himes began writing in the early 1930s while serving a prison sentence for armed robbery. From there, he produced short stories for periodicals such as Esquire and Abbott's Monthly. When released, he focussed on semi-autobiographical protest novels.
In 1953, Himes emigrated to France, where he was approached by Marcel Duhamel of Gallimard to write a detective series for Série Noire, which had published works from the likes of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson. Himes would be the first black author included in the series. The resulting Harlem Cycle gained him celebrity when he won France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for La Reine des Pommes (now known in English as A Rage in Harlem) in 1958. Three of these novels have been adapted into movies: Cotton Comes to Harlem, directed by Ossie Davis in 1970; Come Back, Charleston Blue (based on The Heat's On) in 1972; and A Rage in Harlem, starring Gregory Hines and Danny Glover in 1991.
In 1968, Himes moved to Spain where he made his home until his death.
In 1953, Himes emigrated to France, where he was approached by Marcel Duhamel of Gallimard to write a detective series for Série Noire, which had published works from the likes of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson. Himes would be the first black author included in the series. The resulting Harlem Cycle gained him celebrity when he won France's Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for La Reine des Pommes (now known in English as A Rage in Harlem) in 1958. Three of these novels have been adapted into movies: Cotton Comes to Harlem, directed by Ossie Davis in 1970; Come Back, Charleston Blue (based on The Heat's On) in 1972; and A Rage in Harlem, starring Gregory Hines and Danny Glover in 1991.
In 1968, Himes moved to Spain where he made his home until his death.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
January 12, 2016
Since absolutely loving Chester Himes's first two books in his Harlem Cycle, A Rage in Harlem and The Real Cool Killers, it's sad that the next three books that I read in the cycle have gotten progressively worse. Himes's writing is always assured and fun to read. But while both Rage and Killers feel fresh and alive and filled with memorable characters, this novel feels uninspired and was frankly boring, as if Himes was phoning it in by this time with more of the same formula. After Alberta White drops dead after drinking a bottle of water blessed by the Sweet Prophet Brown during one of his mass street baptisms, it's somehow linked to more murders and a heap of stolen money everyone wants to get their hands on. You might like it, but if you want to start reading books by Chester Himes, I wouldn't recommend starting with this one.
July 6, 2019
COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century North American Crime
BOOK 114 (of 250)
Hook=4 stars: "Faith is a rock! It's like a solid gold dream!" goes the voice of Sweet Prophet Brown. His voice comes through amplifiers on a sound truck parked in front of tenement houses. And on he goes: "On this dream every church in all the world is built..." But soon a lady in the crowd shouts of her dream, "Money, Money, Money!" Himes is presenting to us the true goal of our Prophet. And on page 3, the lady shouting about money drops dead. That's a lot of messaging from the author, right up front.
PACE=4: I'll just quote the San Francisco Chronicle from the back cover of the edition I read: [This book is a] Roar into action in a case of the raging streets of Harlem...Chester Himes is the best writer of mayhem yarns since Raymond Chandler." Yes, this one roars with mayhem. Non-stop action, much more so than Chandler, in my opinion. But there is a big problem here, as the pace is just too fast because it leads to a plot problem, therefore the pace is against itself. (-1 star) Read on.
PLOT=1: Yes, there is mayhem. So much so that for me the plot is muddled. Someone has the money that an Alberta Wright has accumulated via gambling. Is it her husband? Her boyfriend? Any number of the guys delivering the $$$? A last minute revelation pushed me off the track completely. 3/4ths of the way through, I had stopped to try and figure out the time-line (on paper) of everything going on, as my written time-line wasn't a bit of help. A convoluted mess, all in all and surprisingly so given this author's better novels.
CHARACTERS=4: Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones as a detective team make their 4th outing from Himes. Again, I'll quote, this time from the publisher's blurb on the back cover: these 2 are "Harlem's toughest detective duo." Sugar Stone, Alberta Wright's boyfriend, was the first to disappear and an early suspect for the theft of the money. About the Prophet, Himes tells us that the death from chapter 1 has the Prophet thinking, "It was the most desperate situation he had ever faced." Oh, Prophet is a fake. Prophet's top elder, Reverend Jones, is along for the ride. And Rufus Wright, Alberta's husband, is broke and must sell everything he has to pay for her funeral. He at least seems decent at first. That's a cast alright!
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE=4:From page 1: "Sweating foot cops in wet clinging shirts and mounted cops on lathered horses surrounded Sweet Prophet's throne....a throne of red roses on a flower-draped float....Over his head...a sunshade of gold tinsel made in the shape of a halo. About his feet was a circle of little black girls dressed as angels." Himes, though, pushes the violence much too far, right into the area of torture porn. So as great as Himes does (5 stars) at presenting the feel of the novel and the place, I have to take 1 star from Himes for the over-the-top violence, it's just not for me and not necessary for this story.
SUMMARY: My overall rating is 3.4. Himes is the real deal if you're looking for hard boiled detective novels. And there are better Himes's novels than this one.
BOOK 114 (of 250)
Hook=4 stars: "Faith is a rock! It's like a solid gold dream!" goes the voice of Sweet Prophet Brown. His voice comes through amplifiers on a sound truck parked in front of tenement houses. And on he goes: "On this dream every church in all the world is built..." But soon a lady in the crowd shouts of her dream, "Money, Money, Money!" Himes is presenting to us the true goal of our Prophet. And on page 3, the lady shouting about money drops dead. That's a lot of messaging from the author, right up front.
PACE=4: I'll just quote the San Francisco Chronicle from the back cover of the edition I read: [This book is a] Roar into action in a case of the raging streets of Harlem...Chester Himes is the best writer of mayhem yarns since Raymond Chandler." Yes, this one roars with mayhem. Non-stop action, much more so than Chandler, in my opinion. But there is a big problem here, as the pace is just too fast because it leads to a plot problem, therefore the pace is against itself. (-1 star) Read on.
PLOT=1: Yes, there is mayhem. So much so that for me the plot is muddled. Someone has the money that an Alberta Wright has accumulated via gambling. Is it her husband? Her boyfriend? Any number of the guys delivering the $$$? A last minute revelation pushed me off the track completely. 3/4ths of the way through, I had stopped to try and figure out the time-line (on paper) of everything going on, as my written time-line wasn't a bit of help. A convoluted mess, all in all and surprisingly so given this author's better novels.
CHARACTERS=4: Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones as a detective team make their 4th outing from Himes. Again, I'll quote, this time from the publisher's blurb on the back cover: these 2 are "Harlem's toughest detective duo." Sugar Stone, Alberta Wright's boyfriend, was the first to disappear and an early suspect for the theft of the money. About the Prophet, Himes tells us that the death from chapter 1 has the Prophet thinking, "It was the most desperate situation he had ever faced." Oh, Prophet is a fake. Prophet's top elder, Reverend Jones, is along for the ride. And Rufus Wright, Alberta's husband, is broke and must sell everything he has to pay for her funeral. He at least seems decent at first. That's a cast alright!
ATMOSPHERE/PLACE=4:From page 1: "Sweating foot cops in wet clinging shirts and mounted cops on lathered horses surrounded Sweet Prophet's throne....a throne of red roses on a flower-draped float....Over his head...a sunshade of gold tinsel made in the shape of a halo. About his feet was a circle of little black girls dressed as angels." Himes, though, pushes the violence much too far, right into the area of torture porn. So as great as Himes does (5 stars) at presenting the feel of the novel and the place, I have to take 1 star from Himes for the over-the-top violence, it's just not for me and not necessary for this story.
SUMMARY: My overall rating is 3.4. Himes is the real deal if you're looking for hard boiled detective novels. And there are better Himes's novels than this one.
April 9, 2023
Fast paced, dangerous, funny, violent, and incredible. Such writing. Page turning stuff
October 19, 2013
Chester Himes was positioned as the black heir to Raymond Chandler's throne as far as I can tell. His "honest" hard-boiled representations of black life in Harlem are what made his name in the crime genre and you either "get" what he does or you don't. This 6th entry in to his Harlem Cycle follows pretty much the same structure as his first - Rage In Harlem - inept people running round trying to rip each other off and come out on top whilst Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones amble around talking to people and eventually solving the mystery by everything falling in to their laps. It's more about mileau than characterisation and plot and if you want to read what a black man thought Harlem was like sixty years ago then you're in for a treat.
June 23, 2012
Third-string Himes. Yeah, I said it. More chase scenes than a shitty old Western movie (boring me to death), trite racist stereotypes that would make Max Fleischer blush and no cross-dressing thugs this time. As good as Raymond Chandler? You've gotta be joking.
November 3, 2017
If I have to work to support him the least he can do is be scared of me...lol....This one is not as good as the first three books but good nevertheless.
Read
March 9, 2018As good as all the other books in the Harlem Cycle (as apparently they’re called) with a focus on the depravities of organized religion, and a bunch of hustlers trying to get over on a devotee.
September 26, 2012
In the comically grotesque opening to Chester Himes' The Big Gold Dream (1960), Alberta Wright, a buxom, simple-minded, stubborn "kitchen slave" for white folks, has just got religion. With her lay-about lover Sugar Stonewall, she attends a Harlem revival meeting presided over by Sweet Prophet Brown (who possesses "the nimble wits of a confidence man and the nerve of a bank robber"). There she is baptized by the fire hoses of Sweet Prophet's deacons and testifies about her wonderful dream in which three apple pies burst open to fill the kitchen with 100 dollar bills. When Sugar tells her to get a bottle of drinking water blessed by Sweet Prophet and she drinks the liquid, she collapses, to all appearances dead. Sugar takes off running on "his flat feet like beef filets over the streets as if they were paved with broken glass." Has he poisoned her? Or are they working some scam? Or has God put her in a trance?
From that grabbing opening, Himes introduces a sordid panoply of Harlem denizens, among them, a deaf and dumb ex-fighter pimp, a pair of weary detectives, assorted stool pigeons, a gullible janitor, a ruthless racketeer, and his blind addict lover, who get involved in a quest for an elusive fortune. But how much money is there? Where did it come from? Who has murdered two men for it? And where is the money now?
Himes writes vivid descriptions ("his acid-scarred face, the memento of an acid-throwing rumpus one night in a shanty on the Harlem River further uptown, looked like the mask of an African witch doctor"), cool lines ("People will recrucify Jesus Christ for thirty-six grand"), and memorable set pieces (as in the opening revival meeting).
At the same time that Himes is writing a page turning and darkly humorous mystery, he's vividly depicting circa 1950s Harlem and the black experience there. People are people, subject to all the human weaknesses (greed, prevarication, gullibility, violence, etc.), but black people in that era in that place were especially vulnerable to poverty and lack of legal economic opportunities and fulfilling jobs: "Born like a fool, and worked like a mule," as Sweet Prophet sums up Alberta to detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed.
If you like the Easy Rawlins stories of Walter Mosely (like Devil in a Blue Dress) and are interested in mid-20th century Harlem and enjoy unpredictable mysteries with plenty of black humor, flawed humanity, and ineffective police, you should read The Big Gold Dream.
From that grabbing opening, Himes introduces a sordid panoply of Harlem denizens, among them, a deaf and dumb ex-fighter pimp, a pair of weary detectives, assorted stool pigeons, a gullible janitor, a ruthless racketeer, and his blind addict lover, who get involved in a quest for an elusive fortune. But how much money is there? Where did it come from? Who has murdered two men for it? And where is the money now?
Himes writes vivid descriptions ("his acid-scarred face, the memento of an acid-throwing rumpus one night in a shanty on the Harlem River further uptown, looked like the mask of an African witch doctor"), cool lines ("People will recrucify Jesus Christ for thirty-six grand"), and memorable set pieces (as in the opening revival meeting).
At the same time that Himes is writing a page turning and darkly humorous mystery, he's vividly depicting circa 1950s Harlem and the black experience there. People are people, subject to all the human weaknesses (greed, prevarication, gullibility, violence, etc.), but black people in that era in that place were especially vulnerable to poverty and lack of legal economic opportunities and fulfilling jobs: "Born like a fool, and worked like a mule," as Sweet Prophet sums up Alberta to detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed.
If you like the Easy Rawlins stories of Walter Mosely (like Devil in a Blue Dress) and are interested in mid-20th century Harlem and enjoy unpredictable mysteries with plenty of black humor, flawed humanity, and ineffective police, you should read The Big Gold Dream.
July 28, 2025
Chester Himes -The Big Golden Dream — Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones catch the case and the chase is on! See the streets of Harlem … beware of sweet prophets seeking your money… and don’t end up a Dummy! The end.
September 8, 2020
Back when I read all of these at the Ole Miss library(a great perk of being a student there), this was the weakest of Himes' series. The vibe remains the same.
March 9, 2016
Another taut mystery steeped in the vibrant culture of Harlem circa 1960. If you want to know what was happening uptown in the Mad Men era, this book will take you there. Chet Himes makes his writing seem effortless, the books are funny, outrageous, and, though they were written as dime store novels, they have depth. In The Big Gold Dream, the 5th of the series, his plot gives him a chance to make observations about religion as Sweet Prophet Brown both serves and exploits his congregation. The followers are not entirely blind to this but "Religious people love a winner, he had learned".
As I write this review cops in Baltimore and around the country are in the spotlight for abusing and killing members of the public, most of them black. Chester Himes know something about this and writes eloquently about it in all his books. The sad truth is that almost nothing has changed, but what little is changing is due to the efforts of Himes and countless authors and journalists like him, and their readers, who refuse to be silent.
As I write this review cops in Baltimore and around the country are in the spotlight for abusing and killing members of the public, most of them black. Chester Himes know something about this and writes eloquently about it in all his books. The sad truth is that almost nothing has changed, but what little is changing is due to the efforts of Himes and countless authors and journalists like him, and their readers, who refuse to be silent.
August 24, 2009
The crime fighting of Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones continues. This one starts out with a street baptism. The church of Sweet Prophet is converting local residents when one of them drops dead after hitting the numbers in the local gambling houses. The search is on by the local hoodlums to find the cash, but not before there are more killings, thefts, and betrayals. Only Coffin Ed and Gravedigger can get to the bottom of this one.
March 31, 2013
Excellent, fast-moving, engrossing, surprising hard-boiled detective novel. Truly chilling scene in the dark in a warehouse full of stolen/broken furniture, with two people trying to kill one another over a hidden $100,000. I hope they're all like this.
July 28, 2018
He wasnt trying all that hard on this one
March 2, 2022
This is a 1959 book by famous black American crime mystery writer Chester Himes and is the 4th book in his hard-boiled Harlem Detective series featuring black NYPD detective duo Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. The setting is in Harlem, New York in late 1950s. Having read All Shot Up (the 5th book in the series) I have high expectation in this book but was quite disappointed. In this book, too much time is spent on telling the story from the many characters who are not germane to the plot, resulting in not having enough focus on how our detective duo, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, actually solved the case. I find the plot a little thin and the story puffed up to make it longer than the plot support. Like other Chester Himes stories, it does have its share of humor and gives readers good insight into life in Harlem in the 1950s. The title of the book refers to one of the lines used by the preacher Sweet Prophet Brown in the story, which says: “Faith is a Rock! It’s like a solid gold dream!”
Spoiler Alert. The story is basically about several people trying to find some hidden money. In the process, a few of them got killed and the police tried to figure out who killed who. It started with how the hard-working black woman Alberta Wright fainted at a religious festival hosted by a revivalist preacher with a cult-following called Sweet Prophet Brown. People at the festival thought Alberta has died and through a chain of comic coincidences, she ended up in the morgue, where she woke up. It turned out that not too long ago, Alberta has won almost $30000 through an illegal gambling racket. After the money was delivered to her, she hid it inside her apartment. Her boyfriend Sugar Stonewall knew she had money hidden but was not sure where she hid it. So, he put Mickey Finn into Alberta’s water bottle and after she fainted at the festival, he went to search her home. Sugar also got Alberta’s former husband Rufus Wright involved. Rufus decided to rob Alberta’s furniture while she was away so he could do a more detailed search. Rufus got his accomplice and fence Abie Finkelstein involved to move the furniture.
After Abie got Alberta’s furniture, he did a detailed search and found $100,000 hidden inside. Right after he found the money, Abie was killed by an unknown assailant. Next day, police also found the dead body of Rufus. Alberta was suspected of the murder and was arrested. In the meantime, Alberta’s current boyfriend Sugar and another man called Dummy, both knew about Alberta’s hidden money, joined in the hunt. Dummy soon ran into Slick Jenkins, a payoff man for the Tia Juana numbers house, as well as another gangster, a man called Susie Green, both were also interested in finding the money. In the end, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones figured out what was going on and they saved Alberta from being tortured by Slick and Susie for information on the hiding place of the money. Then the two detectives went to Slick’s home and found that Dummy had been stabbed by Susie. Susie, in turn, has been shot by Slick. According to Slick’s girlfriend (who confessed to the detectives), Slick told her he saw Abie and Rufus stole the furniture from Alberta’s home and he followed them. He subsequently killed Abie and stole the money. Even though the two disbelieved her and thought it was Rufus who killed Abie, they processed the case as if she was telling the truth so Slick can be prosecuted. At this point, I think Himes either got sloppy on his facts or he decided to just leave loose ends open. The story really has two missing treasures. The first is the $30,000 of gambling winnings of Alberta that everybody knew about and was searching for. The second is the $100,000 (1000 of $100 bills) Abie found when stripping Alberta’s stolen furniture. Alberta does not even know she has the $100,000 of cash in her furniture. Himes never told us where the $100,000 came from, who killed Abie, and who now got the $100,000. Regarding the $30,000, Alberta finally figured out what happened was she went and see Sweet Prophet Brown one day for religious guidance on how to do with the money. Sweet Prophet Brown hypnotized her and got her to give all the money to him and to forget she had done so.
Spoiler Alert. The story is basically about several people trying to find some hidden money. In the process, a few of them got killed and the police tried to figure out who killed who. It started with how the hard-working black woman Alberta Wright fainted at a religious festival hosted by a revivalist preacher with a cult-following called Sweet Prophet Brown. People at the festival thought Alberta has died and through a chain of comic coincidences, she ended up in the morgue, where she woke up. It turned out that not too long ago, Alberta has won almost $30000 through an illegal gambling racket. After the money was delivered to her, she hid it inside her apartment. Her boyfriend Sugar Stonewall knew she had money hidden but was not sure where she hid it. So, he put Mickey Finn into Alberta’s water bottle and after she fainted at the festival, he went to search her home. Sugar also got Alberta’s former husband Rufus Wright involved. Rufus decided to rob Alberta’s furniture while she was away so he could do a more detailed search. Rufus got his accomplice and fence Abie Finkelstein involved to move the furniture.
After Abie got Alberta’s furniture, he did a detailed search and found $100,000 hidden inside. Right after he found the money, Abie was killed by an unknown assailant. Next day, police also found the dead body of Rufus. Alberta was suspected of the murder and was arrested. In the meantime, Alberta’s current boyfriend Sugar and another man called Dummy, both knew about Alberta’s hidden money, joined in the hunt. Dummy soon ran into Slick Jenkins, a payoff man for the Tia Juana numbers house, as well as another gangster, a man called Susie Green, both were also interested in finding the money. In the end, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones figured out what was going on and they saved Alberta from being tortured by Slick and Susie for information on the hiding place of the money. Then the two detectives went to Slick’s home and found that Dummy had been stabbed by Susie. Susie, in turn, has been shot by Slick. According to Slick’s girlfriend (who confessed to the detectives), Slick told her he saw Abie and Rufus stole the furniture from Alberta’s home and he followed them. He subsequently killed Abie and stole the money. Even though the two disbelieved her and thought it was Rufus who killed Abie, they processed the case as if she was telling the truth so Slick can be prosecuted. At this point, I think Himes either got sloppy on his facts or he decided to just leave loose ends open. The story really has two missing treasures. The first is the $30,000 of gambling winnings of Alberta that everybody knew about and was searching for. The second is the $100,000 (1000 of $100 bills) Abie found when stripping Alberta’s stolen furniture. Alberta does not even know she has the $100,000 of cash in her furniture. Himes never told us where the $100,000 came from, who killed Abie, and who now got the $100,000. Regarding the $30,000, Alberta finally figured out what happened was she went and see Sweet Prophet Brown one day for religious guidance on how to do with the money. Sweet Prophet Brown hypnotized her and got her to give all the money to him and to forget she had done so.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 29, 2023
“FAITH IS A ROCK! It’s like a solid gold dream!” The voice of the Sweet Prophet Brown issued from the amplifiers atop a sound truck and reverberated from the shabby brick faces of the tenement houses flanking 117th Street.
It’s unusual to hit the title phrase in the very first sentence!!! It's almost as if Himes didn't know what title to use and grabbed the first phrase he saw on page one.
This is not one of the stronger books in the series, Himes seems to be phoning it in with more than just the title. At times, he seems resentful that he even has to write this, and I got the feeling he hated everyone in Harlem, because he wrote all the characters as caricatures. There’s little humor in this one, mostly bitterness and disgust. I have read that Himes wanted to be known as a literary author and resented that his big success was with the Harlem cycle crime novels, and I can see the resentment here.
“Let’s find somebody with a roll of fresh money and work back from that,” Coffin Ed said, “Our folks will kill one another for damn near anything, but whenever they kill a Jew it’s for money.” “Right,” Grave Digger said.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed don't show up until 1/4 of the way in, after multiple dead bodies have already piled up, and then they disappear again for another ten or so chapters, until they show up again for the resolution.
I thought this would be a fast and engaging read, since it's only 150 pages, but it was a slog, and it's PACKED with characters (some of whom go by more than one name) and I quickly got confused. In some cases, a character's actions are described in detail for several chapters without naming him, and it's only several chapters later that you learn who it was. Most of it is intentionally confusing, so the "big reveal" in the last few chapters can feel meaningful, but it felt needlessly coy and annoying. Several of the men had "S" names that I kept confusing: Sweet Prophet, Sugar Stonewall, Slick Jenkins, Susie Green, and Sam ... Maybe I should have taken notes on who was who from the start, like you have to with the big Russian novels.
If I had been able to keep more of the story straight, I would have enjoyed the ending more.
words I looked up:
* nautch dancer - a popular court dance performed by girls in India.
* stylo - a type of fountain pen.
* Bertillon system - a system for identifying persons based on bodily measurements
* sleazy - flimsy fabric
* mugger, slick, starker - terms to describe various men, I never found definitions for them, but they clearly meant something specific to the other characters in the story.
January 8, 2024
"Faith is a rock! It's like a solid gold dream!" goes the voice of Sweet Prophet Brown.
The Big Solid Gold Dream is the 4th book in Chester Himes’s hard-boiled Harlem Detective series featuring black NYPD detective duo Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. It’s not the best one, as it is sort of convoluted, with a second amount of money emerging without explanation. But it is lots of fun in places, and features a noir foundation, a poor people’s pursuit of money.
"Money, Money, Money!"
Coffin Ed and Grave Digger investigate when Alberta White, a woman worshiper (who has won a lot of money in an illegal gambling operation, mysteriously dies at a revival meeting led by Sweet Prophet Brown, an obvious con man. As with the opium-addicted preacher of the last book, it is always good to make fun of religious charlatans.
How does Alberta die? She drinks a bottle of water blessed by the Sweet Prophet. But whodunnit? Obviously the preacher! But before we are done we have so many suspects the effect is just a comic romp with a heavy dose of violence, the body count rising.
I mean, where IS that money? A mattress is always a good place to hide it, so everyone wants the furniture in that house which Alberta’s husband sells to cover the costs of his wife's funeral. The Jewish guy buys the furniture, but he is soon dead, and this is really just the beginning.
"People will recrucify Jesus Christ for thirty-six grand."
You have a typical Himes cast of crazy characters who hypnotize us with their great talk: A deaf and dumb ex-fighter pimp named Dummy, assorted stool pigeons, a racketeer and his blind addict lover, and so on.
As fun as that sounds, I would still say this is the weakest in the series so far. Coffin Ed and Gravedigger play sort of cameo roles in this one.
The Big Solid Gold Dream is the 4th book in Chester Himes’s hard-boiled Harlem Detective series featuring black NYPD detective duo Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones. It’s not the best one, as it is sort of convoluted, with a second amount of money emerging without explanation. But it is lots of fun in places, and features a noir foundation, a poor people’s pursuit of money.
"Money, Money, Money!"
Coffin Ed and Grave Digger investigate when Alberta White, a woman worshiper (who has won a lot of money in an illegal gambling operation, mysteriously dies at a revival meeting led by Sweet Prophet Brown, an obvious con man. As with the opium-addicted preacher of the last book, it is always good to make fun of religious charlatans.
How does Alberta die? She drinks a bottle of water blessed by the Sweet Prophet. But whodunnit? Obviously the preacher! But before we are done we have so many suspects the effect is just a comic romp with a heavy dose of violence, the body count rising.
I mean, where IS that money? A mattress is always a good place to hide it, so everyone wants the furniture in that house which Alberta’s husband sells to cover the costs of his wife's funeral. The Jewish guy buys the furniture, but he is soon dead, and this is really just the beginning.
"People will recrucify Jesus Christ for thirty-six grand."
You have a typical Himes cast of crazy characters who hypnotize us with their great talk: A deaf and dumb ex-fighter pimp named Dummy, assorted stool pigeons, a racketeer and his blind addict lover, and so on.
As fun as that sounds, I would still say this is the weakest in the series so far. Coffin Ed and Gravedigger play sort of cameo roles in this one.
August 7, 2024
„Lékařské zprávy, fotky, otisky prstů, posudky z kriminální laboratoře a další díla moderní kriminalistiky, to všechno je v Harlemu při vyšetřování vražd skoro úplně k ničemu. Výslechy taky moc nezabírají, protože jak kriminálníci, tak harlemská spodina jsou už od narození velmi talentovaní lháři. Výslechy třetího stupně jsou lepší, ale z úplně každého pravdu vymlátit pravdu nedokážete.“
Můj poslední kousek do Harlemské série (když nepočítáme posmrtně vydanou knihu o povstání černých proti bílým) a opět skvělý.
Alberta Wrightová zemře během pouliční náboženské akce, hned poté, co z ní zlatem ověšený Sweet Prophet vytáhne pár stovek dolarů za pokřtění a prodá jí i drobky ze své kapsy… a než jí stihnou převést do márnice, stihne její „ex-manžel“ naburácet do jejího bytu a prodat všechen majetek. Jenže jak se ukazuje, Alberta měla nejspíš peněz víc a začíná souboj o to, komu se jich podaří zmocnit, kdo koho podrazí a zabije a kdo nakonec bude o pár tisíc dolarů bohatší. Samozřejmě, pokud ty peníze vůbec existovaly.
A do toho se najednou vrací mrtvá žena.
Jo, klasická Himesova brutální groteska ze světa, kde se na morálku moc nehraje. Zase spíš sledujeme různé podrazáky a podvodníky a lidi, co hledají něco, z čeho by mohli vytřískat peníze – detektivové Hrobař Jones a Rakvoun Ed tady v podstatě jen hostují a víc zasáhnou (rozuměj: začnou víc mlátit lidi) teprve na konci knihy.
Přes tu zábavnost je tady podtextem život žen v Harlemu, což fakt není veselý. Ženy tu jsou hlavně od toho, aby živily muže. Jsou obvykle tím jediným, kdo něco dělá a nosí peníze, takže když Alberta zemře, je její současný přítel zoufalý především z toho, že najednou nemá žádné peníze a vůbec netuší, co má dělat.
Jako detektivka to zase tak moc nefunguje, člověk to fakt musí brát jako skvěle napsanou hrabalovskou koláž z Harlemu konce padesátých let.
Můj poslední kousek do Harlemské série (když nepočítáme posmrtně vydanou knihu o povstání černých proti bílým) a opět skvělý.
Alberta Wrightová zemře během pouliční náboženské akce, hned poté, co z ní zlatem ověšený Sweet Prophet vytáhne pár stovek dolarů za pokřtění a prodá jí i drobky ze své kapsy… a než jí stihnou převést do márnice, stihne její „ex-manžel“ naburácet do jejího bytu a prodat všechen majetek. Jenže jak se ukazuje, Alberta měla nejspíš peněz víc a začíná souboj o to, komu se jich podaří zmocnit, kdo koho podrazí a zabije a kdo nakonec bude o pár tisíc dolarů bohatší. Samozřejmě, pokud ty peníze vůbec existovaly.
A do toho se najednou vrací mrtvá žena.
Jo, klasická Himesova brutální groteska ze světa, kde se na morálku moc nehraje. Zase spíš sledujeme různé podrazáky a podvodníky a lidi, co hledají něco, z čeho by mohli vytřískat peníze – detektivové Hrobař Jones a Rakvoun Ed tady v podstatě jen hostují a víc zasáhnou (rozuměj: začnou víc mlátit lidi) teprve na konci knihy.
Přes tu zábavnost je tady podtextem život žen v Harlemu, což fakt není veselý. Ženy tu jsou hlavně od toho, aby živily muže. Jsou obvykle tím jediným, kdo něco dělá a nosí peníze, takže když Alberta zemře, je její současný přítel zoufalý především z toho, že najednou nemá žádné peníze a vůbec netuší, co má dělat.
Jako detektivka to zase tak moc nefunguje, člověk to fakt musí brát jako skvěle napsanou hrabalovskou koláž z Harlemu konce padesátých let.
February 7, 2023
It is a day outside where a con Preacher is trying to get people to give money to his church. A woman in the crowd I think is named Ameril. Has a trance and looses consciousness. It turns out that her husband gave her some holy water to make her fall asleep so he can look in their house to get money she hid from winning the numbers. It turns out that the preacher hypnotized Ameril to give him the money. some how confederate money was put in her mattress. A man named slick who was one of the people responsible for giving her the money that she won. hides In The window and sees how the woman hides the money in the mattress. Her husband is outside the apartment looking at Slick. The husband sells the furniture to a Jewish man which includes the mattress. The Jew man looks In The mattress and finds the money. Rufus the husband of the woman goes inside and kills the Jew taking the money. A man named Silk is in there too and there is a knife fight between Rufus and Silk. Rufus runs away and is killed by Susie. After that Sugar and Dummy look inside the apartment to find the money. It’s incredible the way dummy is a pimp and he can’t hear or talk but reads lips and writes on notepads. Coffin Johnson and Gravedigger Jones investigate and find Silk in a apartment with Dummy, a blind girl, and Susie . Susie is shot by Slick while Coffin and Grace digger were there. And the two cops beat the shit out of Slick and they get info from the blind woman about what I already said. I kind of had to wait until the end of the book to find out who killed the Jew and Rufus but when I put two and two together I was happy. At the end of the book the woman stabs the preacher because he tricked her and told the cops that she would have gave him the money if he asked.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 28, 2019
A short easy reading book that transports you to another life. Chester Himes had to move to Europe to find publishers that would take a risk with stories about Harlem by a black author. The results are very much in the ram,bam, shoot 'em or lock them up style of the period. The characters seem to retain an optimism in their adversity living close to the bread line and always seeking that big win on the numbers. (Illegal and unregulated lotteries that took big percentages of any wins).
This is the story of one such when Alberta Wright strikes rich and sows the money into her mattress. Her devious lover, her estranged husband and the Jewish second hand dealer all become involved. Then the bodies start to mount up and a charismatic preacher all make their appearance. Then it is up to the detectives Grave Digger Jones and his partner Coffin Ed Johnson to discover what has happened.
Good fast moving action and great characters.
This is the story of one such when Alberta Wright strikes rich and sows the money into her mattress. Her devious lover, her estranged husband and the Jewish second hand dealer all become involved. Then the bodies start to mount up and a charismatic preacher all make their appearance. Then it is up to the detectives Grave Digger Jones and his partner Coffin Ed Johnson to discover what has happened.
Good fast moving action and great characters.
August 6, 2020
Wonderful Harlem Detective story, a little light on the Harlem Detectives though. The full range of Himes' cynicism is on display: priests, pimps, conmen, thieves, police...everyone looks bad. It also displays the Himes style: you see the crime happen, but it doesn't become clear what has happened until near the end. This means that it can feel like you've missed something, like an explanation of how a cook came by a huge amount of money, or who killed a Jewish used furniture salesman.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed (the latter permanently pissed off) get some good licks in, but the story is mostly driven by Slick, Susie, Sugar, Rufus, Abe, the memorable Dummy (a prizefighter whose tongue was cut off by the mob in retaliation for his testifying in some legal case), the honest Alberta, various chippies and scammers, stoolpigeons, etc. etc.
Jump in with both feet, don't expect to fully grasp what's going on as it happens, and just listen to the cant and jargon.
Grave Digger and Coffin Ed (the latter permanently pissed off) get some good licks in, but the story is mostly driven by Slick, Susie, Sugar, Rufus, Abe, the memorable Dummy (a prizefighter whose tongue was cut off by the mob in retaliation for his testifying in some legal case), the honest Alberta, various chippies and scammers, stoolpigeons, etc. etc.
Jump in with both feet, don't expect to fully grasp what's going on as it happens, and just listen to the cant and jargon.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 31, 2025
A bunch of stupid people follow each other around looking for some money. That about sums up this book. The plot is so simple it's confusing. Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones are barely in it and don't contribute anything to the plot. To call it a detective novel would be stretching it. The characters could be described as paper thin if that wasn't an insult to paper. There are characters named Slick, Sweet, Sugar, and Susie. I couldn't tell them apart. Another character is named Dummy, and I'm surprised Himes didn't name him Stupid in keeping with the pattern. The only thing the book has going for it, which is true of all of Himes's Harlem books, is the atmosphere. Himes's strong suit is not plot or dialogue or action or suspense unfortunately. His strong suit is describing a room or a street or an alley or a person to such a disgusting, degrading extent that you can almost smell it. But since all the Harlem books have this going for them, my advice is to read one of the good ones.
November 27, 2019
When I first started Chester Himes’s The Big Gold Dream, I was expecting a different type of novel. I’ve heard talk about Detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson and knew I wanted to give one of their novels a try.
However, they really aren’t the lead characters in this story as this is more of an ensemble tale. That didn’t matter, though, because it was well-written and thoroughly enjoyable. It’s a quick moving tale of greed, double-crosses, and murder.
The scene is 1960 Harlem (which is the year it was also written). The language and attitudes displayed are far rougher than most readers would be accustomed to reading today. If that type of thing will offend you, then go elsewhere. If not, give this story a try.
As for me, I’ll give Himes another go as I want something more from Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson.
However, they really aren’t the lead characters in this story as this is more of an ensemble tale. That didn’t matter, though, because it was well-written and thoroughly enjoyable. It’s a quick moving tale of greed, double-crosses, and murder.
The scene is 1960 Harlem (which is the year it was also written). The language and attitudes displayed are far rougher than most readers would be accustomed to reading today. If that type of thing will offend you, then go elsewhere. If not, give this story a try.
As for me, I’ll give Himes another go as I want something more from Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson.
May 26, 2020
The fourth installment in the Harlem Cycle and although Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones rarely appear this was a very enjoyable outing. It was interesting to see the six or more perps, con men, hustlers, and other bad guys running around trying (and usually failing) to commit crimes in the underbelly of Harlem in the late 1950s. Chester Himes (1909-84) deserves to be read along with the other authors of the noir and hard-boiled detective genres. Nothing earth shattering or life changing, just an enjoyable read from the other side of this life.
April 2, 2022
Lo primero que leo de Himes y me dejó satisfecho, sobre todo por ese estilo dinámico, socarrón, de diálogos soeces y maneras violentas. La ambientación en Harlem está muy bien lograda, quizás en el argumento cojea un poco, ya que Himes parece ser de los que no explican mucho, además que la velocidad de la trama deja poco tiempo para hilar fino. Seguro leo más de Sepulturero y Ataúd, ya que aquí parecen más personajes secundarios al lado de la corpulenta Alberta, quien se roba todo el protagonismo. (7.10.21)
June 23, 2025
An entertaining crime story and grim tour of the 1960's Harlem underworld, with an amazing cast of characters, including: a deaf-mute former prizefighter turned pimp; a grifting street preacher who sells baptisms and communion crumbs to the hopeful; a bagman for the numbers racket (precurser to the modern lottery); a crooked furniture dealer who lives by stealing from the downtrodden. And of course, Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones, who unwind the tale of a woman who seriously got religion and the desperate machinations that follow in her wake.
February 27, 2024
I would have given 5 stars to the first few chapters of this book, but it then grew more and more muddled until the last few chapters were long explanations of what had happened. The initial quests to find the missing loot and also to find out who killed Alberta (spoiler: she’s not really dead) became side notes about which I lost all interest. The characters of 1940’s (I think) Harlem were colorful, and the settings intriguing, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the shortcomings.
October 31, 2024
This was an fast-paced, entertaining murder mystery set in Harlem in the 1950s. The murders revolved around missing money. An unsuspecting woman is set up for a robbery after hitting the numbers for big bucks. But things go awry very quickly and the bodies pile up. Very atmospheric and evocative of the era. The NYPD detectives (Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson) are great characters as the navigate the racial constraints of the time.
April 27, 2025
A solid detective story about two black detectives Gravedigger and Coffin Ed doling out some form of justice in post war Harlem. Himes prose makes you feel the rhythm of Harlem and captures the efforts of various conmen and thieves trying to get over on each other in search of a big score. Himes is one of the first well known black writers of noir fiction. It is hard to imagine Colson Whitehead and S.A. Cosby not being influenced by him.
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