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Shaft #2
Shaft Among the Jews
A Novel by Ernest Tidyman John Shaft is back, Smooth, black, and deadly, the private eye whose initial recorded exploits (Shaft) established him as out first genuine superhero since James Bond, is on the prowl again, this time as the best-paid shvartze ever to set foot into the inner sanctums of New York’s famed diamond district. His clients for this exotic adventure are a committee of Hassidim, orthodox Jews whom shaft as first mistakes for a posse of cowboys. Diamond merchants all, the are concerned over certain inexplicable events—a few murders, some disappearances of sizable gem collections—in what is usually a tightly self-controlled and most explicable business. Impelled by dyspepsia for his newly decorated office and a promised fee beyond any he has every imagined receiving, Shaft steps out intrepidly into a strange world—a world of large icy stones, of hushed, veloured showrooms, of rabbinically cast karate experts—dogged by his exasperated friend from the precinct, Lt. John Anderozzi, and paralleled by a task of secret agents. The action is swift and unpredictable, by turns of violent and comic, and while Shaft comes out on top, one cannot say he is never at a loss in Ernest Tidyman’s pell-mell, sophisticated, and inventive caper.
244 pages, hardcover
First published June 29, 1972
1 person is currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Ernest Tidyman
26 books26 followersErnest Ralph Tidyman took his first breath on Jan. 1, 1928, the son of a veteran police reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. At age 14, he dropped out of school and, concealing his youth, won his own police-reporting gig with the rival Cleveland News. Following a two-year stint in the U.S. Army, Tidyman returned to Cleveland and worked as an editor for The Plain Dealer before moving to such dailies as the New York Post and The New York Times.
Ernest Tidyman is best known for his novels featuring the African-American detective John Shaft. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the film versions of Shaft and The French Connection. Tidyman was awarded an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation of The French Connection.
Ernest Tidyman is best known for his novels featuring the African-American detective John Shaft. He also co-wrote the screenplay for the film versions of Shaft and The French Connection. Tidyman was awarded an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation of The French Connection.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 7, 2014
Reminded me a bit of the Spillane's Goliath Bone. I'm aware that it's not a fair comparison but they are both violent and sexy and dealing with some truly ridiculous plots (dreams of million alchemists are fulfilled in this one) involving Israel and world domination. But I remember reading Goliath Bone just made me sad for the old maestro while reading Shaft was pure fun.Like always is.
More here (review includes spoilers!):
http://a60books.blogspot.ie/2014/06/s...
More here (review includes spoilers!):
http://a60books.blogspot.ie/2014/06/s...
May 31, 2017
Unfortunate that Tidyman's Shaft novels are out of print and scarce. Tougher than the movies and quite a window into the grit and grime of 70s New York.
March 19, 2017
A Jewish scientist flees Israel with a secret formula for artificially creating diamonds indiscernible from the natural thing, pursued by Mossad agents and his own daughter, while Shaft gets hired by a group of Diamond District Hassidim who want him to find out whose offing cutters. In true detective fiction fashion the cases come together with literally explosive results (I mean, at one point there's a rocket attack).
The interplay between the bewildered Shaft and the Hasids was amusing and Tidyman's writing is vivid, but moves quick. The climactic action sequence in the after hours diamond company toward the end of the book is pretty good. Shaft's a bit of a homophobe so expect that going in, but that aside, I'm enjoying this series. It has a bit of a Fleming Bond feel at times.
The interplay between the bewildered Shaft and the Hasids was amusing and Tidyman's writing is vivid, but moves quick. The climactic action sequence in the after hours diamond company toward the end of the book is pretty good. Shaft's a bit of a homophobe so expect that going in, but that aside, I'm enjoying this series. It has a bit of a Fleming Bond feel at times.
February 29, 2016
Second and best book in the Shaft series. This is a fantastic read for anyone with a hankering for seventies pulp fiction. Tidyman has a writing style that is both tough and humorous. The plot, involving the hunt for an old diamond cutter who has developed a formula for creating synthetic diamonds, provides a great backdrop for a cast of well drawn villains for Shaft to take on. There are some delicious moments of absurdity peppered with excellent dialogue. Lots of action and sex to fulfill male fantasies.
September 12, 2022
My second diamond industry murder mystery, Murder is Not a Girl's Best Friend has just come out, so I’m reading, and reviewing, a lot of classic diamond-related mystery books.
You don’t expect a book called “Shaft Among the Jews” to be a paragon of sensitivity, and this isn’t, to say the least. It’s offensive in all the ways you would expect, and even a few ways you wouldn’t: it’s anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynist, racist, anti-Italian, and much, much more. Early on, there’s a line, “Shaft didn’t like Jews.” Shaft is the hero! Racial slurs fly as easily as bullets in this story, and there’s plenty of bullets.
But if you can get past that (which isn't always easy), as well as the sometimes-over-the-top prose and absurd plot, this is a fun and fast-moving book, that embraces its inherent trashiness shamelessly and gleefully. It takes a while to get going, but once it does, it had me hooked. I liked the multi-faceted look it provides of 1970s New York, from the police precincts, to the executive suites, to the janitors in the basement. The hero manages to be both super-cool and human. The romance sub-plot is well-done and kind of sweet.
“Shaft Among the Jews” is not currently in print, and, given how offensive it is to modern sensibilities, it probably won’t be republished anytime soon. You can’t even get it as an e-book, and a hard copy sells for about $40 online. But you can read it for free (for now) at the Internet archive; you have to re-borrow it every hour or so, but it’s not like there’s a huge waiting list.
This is often called the best “Shaft” book. I haven’t read the others, but I believe it. It’s pulp trash, but really fun pulp trash. I can almost see Quentin Tarantino reading this, his eyes shining.
You don’t expect a book called “Shaft Among the Jews” to be a paragon of sensitivity, and this isn’t, to say the least. It’s offensive in all the ways you would expect, and even a few ways you wouldn’t: it’s anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynist, racist, anti-Italian, and much, much more. Early on, there’s a line, “Shaft didn’t like Jews.” Shaft is the hero! Racial slurs fly as easily as bullets in this story, and there’s plenty of bullets.
But if you can get past that (which isn't always easy), as well as the sometimes-over-the-top prose and absurd plot, this is a fun and fast-moving book, that embraces its inherent trashiness shamelessly and gleefully. It takes a while to get going, but once it does, it had me hooked. I liked the multi-faceted look it provides of 1970s New York, from the police precincts, to the executive suites, to the janitors in the basement. The hero manages to be both super-cool and human. The romance sub-plot is well-done and kind of sweet.
“Shaft Among the Jews” is not currently in print, and, given how offensive it is to modern sensibilities, it probably won’t be republished anytime soon. You can’t even get it as an e-book, and a hard copy sells for about $40 online. But you can read it for free (for now) at the Internet archive; you have to re-borrow it every hour or so, but it’s not like there’s a huge waiting list.
This is often called the best “Shaft” book. I haven’t read the others, but I believe it. It’s pulp trash, but really fun pulp trash. I can almost see Quentin Tarantino reading this, his eyes shining.
September 11, 2022
3.5 stars.
I encountered Shaft early and grew up loving the movies. This book piqued my appetite for escapism with its truly bananas premise. It is outrageous. As a lurid pulp thriller it didn’t disappoint, but there’s no denying it’s truly a product of its time with some excruciatingly offside politics by today’s standards. I’d like to think that Tidyman was trying to be progressive…
I encountered Shaft early and grew up loving the movies. This book piqued my appetite for escapism with its truly bananas premise. It is outrageous. As a lurid pulp thriller it didn’t disappoint, but there’s no denying it’s truly a product of its time with some excruciatingly offside politics by today’s standards. I’d like to think that Tidyman was trying to be progressive…
December 1, 2015
Ahhh, ich liebe diese Hörbuchreihe: Shaft, der schwarze Privatdetektiv, der im New York der 70er auf seine Art für Recht sorgt - diesmal im Auftrag von sieben Rabbinern, die plötzlich in seinem Appartement stehen. Im Diamanten-Bezirk herrscht Unruhe, bereits fünf Händler wurden auf ihren Reisen in den USA kaltblütig ermordet und ausgeraubt. Und der israelische Geheimdienst ist auch noch mit im Spiel. Doch wobei?
Cool wie immer kämpft sich Shaft durch ein Dickicht von Gerüchten und Geheimnissen, natürlich noch zusätzlich etwas verwirrt durch eine schöne Frau ;-) Es geht so richtig zur Sache, denn die unterschiedlichsten Seiten mischen hier mit, wenn vielleicht auch nicht alle im gleichen Spiel. Das macht es zeitweise etwas verwirrend, denn die grandiose Musik von Isaac Hayes wie auch die entsprechende tolle akustische Untermalung lenken doch etwas ab. Das macht aber überhaupt nichts: Da es (leider) nur eine CD ist, hört und genießt man sie einfach ein zweites Mal - und hat dann ganz sicher alles mitbekommen.
Wie im New York der 70er üblich (?), ist garantiert nichts politisch korrekt. Schwarze sind Ni****, Frauen bzw. die eine zart und unbeholfen und bevor man redet, schlägt man erst mal zu ;-) - ganz klar, es herrscht die Macht des Stärkeren. Wen das nicht stört, wird an diesem Hörbuch seine helle Freude haben - alleine schon die Stimme von Shaft. Und die Musik...
Cool wie immer kämpft sich Shaft durch ein Dickicht von Gerüchten und Geheimnissen, natürlich noch zusätzlich etwas verwirrt durch eine schöne Frau ;-) Es geht so richtig zur Sache, denn die unterschiedlichsten Seiten mischen hier mit, wenn vielleicht auch nicht alle im gleichen Spiel. Das macht es zeitweise etwas verwirrend, denn die grandiose Musik von Isaac Hayes wie auch die entsprechende tolle akustische Untermalung lenken doch etwas ab. Das macht aber überhaupt nichts: Da es (leider) nur eine CD ist, hört und genießt man sie einfach ein zweites Mal - und hat dann ganz sicher alles mitbekommen.
Wie im New York der 70er üblich (?), ist garantiert nichts politisch korrekt. Schwarze sind Ni****, Frauen bzw. die eine zart und unbeholfen und bevor man redet, schlägt man erst mal zu ;-) - ganz klar, es herrscht die Macht des Stärkeren. Wen das nicht stört, wird an diesem Hörbuch seine helle Freude haben - alleine schon die Stimme von Shaft. Und die Musik...
February 8, 2010
Now I love all things Shaft, but this story starts on the flimsy premise that Shaft--a native New Yorker--mistakes a group of Hasidic Jews for a posse of cowboys... because of their hats. Pretty weak start, Mr. Tidyman.
January 8, 2023
Whoa. It took years to track down a reasonably priced copy to read. Worth the wait.
The second in the Shaft series once again features New York City as much as it does John Shaft, and Tidyman is again unconstrained by a need to give the readers every detail, stylistic hints do as much as rote recitation, and are brighter for the allowing the readers imagination to engage.
Several memorable - and a few moving - quotes are unexpectedly present, to wit:
"He looks more like an Eye-talian he-whore than a jeweler."
"The survivor learns by living while the dead fall ignorant of even their own purposes'"
"...she was utterly worthless as a human being apart from her efforts at keeping the economy strong as a continuous circulator of currency."
(About an Israeli commando) "{he stood}...on the small hillock where ten victims of a Fedayeen raid lay buried, including his wife and infant son. So long ago. The trees just planted then, struggling for life in the furnace heat of the dry land. Now they covered the valley with their blossoms, mature trees, as old as his son would have been."
"Shaft had been black on the streets of Harlem, black in the army, black as a competitor for the largess of white society, but working as porter for Morris Blackburn, that was the first time he had ever been a nigger."
All in all, there is a depth and character to Shaft - and to all the supporting players in his tales - that is lost in his broader portrayals and cultural saturation. More people would be better served if they knew him as written. And if you disagree...Shut your mouth.
The second in the Shaft series once again features New York City as much as it does John Shaft, and Tidyman is again unconstrained by a need to give the readers every detail, stylistic hints do as much as rote recitation, and are brighter for the allowing the readers imagination to engage.
Several memorable - and a few moving - quotes are unexpectedly present, to wit:
"He looks more like an Eye-talian he-whore than a jeweler."
"The survivor learns by living while the dead fall ignorant of even their own purposes'"
"...she was utterly worthless as a human being apart from her efforts at keeping the economy strong as a continuous circulator of currency."
(About an Israeli commando) "{he stood}...on the small hillock where ten victims of a Fedayeen raid lay buried, including his wife and infant son. So long ago. The trees just planted then, struggling for life in the furnace heat of the dry land. Now they covered the valley with their blossoms, mature trees, as old as his son would have been."
"Shaft had been black on the streets of Harlem, black in the army, black as a competitor for the largess of white society, but working as porter for Morris Blackburn, that was the first time he had ever been a nigger."
All in all, there is a depth and character to Shaft - and to all the supporting players in his tales - that is lost in his broader portrayals and cultural saturation. More people would be better served if they knew him as written. And if you disagree...Shut your mouth.
June 9, 2023
This is the second book in the Shaft series. The story is actually a good one where Shaft is hired by Hasidic Jews to find out about stolen diamonds. There is a lot of swearing in the book and action is toward the ending. The cops, Shaft, and Jews are very suspicious of each other which makes the plot very twisted.
I do want to say that the title of the book is an unfortunate one.
I do want to say that the title of the book is an unfortunate one.
August 30, 2019
Better than the first book!
May 23, 2007
Sexy John Shaft solves a mystery among the Jewish diamond merchants of 46th St. Hilarious.
Want to read
December 1, 2008If I were a puppet (I'm your puppet) my wooden jaw would clack to the floor.
***
Should the title be Shaft Amongst the Jews? I was never really clear on that grammar rule.
***
Should the title be Shaft Amongst the Jews? I was never really clear on that grammar rule.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews