Bad Night Is Falling

Ivan Monk #3

by Gary Phillips

When three members of a Mexican family, including a little girl, are killed in a vicious firebombing, private eye Ivan Monk is called in by the tenants' security force to find out is responsible and uncovers a complex web of gang violence, corruption, racism, and murder.

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

GARY PHILLIPS has been a community activist, labor organizer and delivered dog cages. He’s published various novels, comics, short stories and edited several anthologies including South Central Noir and the Anthony award-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Violent Spring, first published in 1994 was named in 2020 one of the essential crime novels of Los Angeles. He was also a writer/co-producer on FX’s Snowfall (streaming on Hulu), about crack and the CIA in 1980s South Central where he grew up. Recent novels include One-Shot Harry and Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem. He lives with his family in the wilds of Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Geicodave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mediocre, at best. Creaky plot and the author tries too hard to show he's hip. It's a sure sign of a weak writer when he devotes space to descriptions of the food the characters eat.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phillips was an Ashland Mystery guest in 2008 guest and I don’t know how I missed reading Bad Night is Falling until now. Ivan Monk is a wonderful protag, strong and smart, funny and wry just like Phillips himself. In Bad night is Falling, Monk is right smack in the middle of gangs and corruption amidst the racial tensions 1990’s Los Angeles. Totally political, unashamedly frank, Monk finds his way between the factions.

--Ashland Mystery