Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, top Black police detectives, investigate the murder of Valentine Haines, who is found stabbed in a large bread basket
Love and jealousy erupt into violence in The Crazy Kill, a classic thriller in Chester Himes's trailblazing Harlem Detectives series.
One early morning, Reverend Short is watching from his bedroom window as the A&P across the street is robbed. As he tries to see the thief get away, the opium-addicted preacher leans too far and falls out--but he is unscathed, thanks to an enormous bread basket outside the bakery downstairs. As the crowd gathers to see what happened, a shocking discovery is made: There is another body in the bread basket, and Valentine Haines is dead, really dead. It's up to Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson ti find out who murdered Val.
