Ash Dark as Night

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By Gary Phillips

Publisher Description

In the follow-up to One-Shot Harry, fearless crime photographer and occasional private eye Harry Ingram finds himself in the LAPD's crosshairs after capturing damning evidence of police brutality.

An atmospheric dive into a city on the brink that's brimming with remarkable historical detail, Ash Dark as Night is perfect for fans of Walter Mosley and James Ellroy.

Los Angeles, August 1965. Anger and pent-up frustrations boil over in the Watts neighborhood after a traffic stop of two Black motorists. As the Watts riots explode, crime photographer Harry Ingram snaps photos at the scene, including images of the police as they unleash batons, dogs, and water hoses on civilians. When he captures the image of an unarmed activist being shot down by the cops, he winds up in the hospital, beaten, his camera missing. Proof of the unjust killing seems lost—until Ingram’s girlfriend, Anita Claire, retrieves the hidden film in a daring rescue. The photo makes front-page news.

A recuperating Ingram is approached by Betty Payton, a comrade of Anita’s mother, who wants Ingram’s help tracking down her business associate Moses “Mose” Tolbert, last seen during the riots. Ingram follows the investigation down a rabbit hole of burglary rings, bank robberies, looted cash, and clandestine agendas—all the while grappling with his newfound fame, which puts him in the sightlines of LAPD’s secretive intelligence division.

Ash Dark as Night is a nail-biting ride-along through midcentury Los Angeles with a crime fiction legend in the driver’s seat.

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3 Reviews

3.0

Sarah

Created 7 months ago

Hunter Gossett

Created 8 months ago

ink.readsalot

Created 12 months ago

“Ash Dark as Night by Gary Phillips and narrated by Leon Nixon is Book 2 of the "A Harry Ingram Mystery" series and the first audiobook I have listened to from this author and it is outstanding Leon Nixon has a beautiful timbre that is at once strong and calm, undulating with thhe flow of the narrative in spectacular fashion Gary Phillips is a master of atmospheric, authentic narrative and dialogue, interspersing historical fact in a powerful opening to the novel with an intriguing mystery to fill out the storyline The story is based during the Watts Riots of 1965 which took place at a time of continuing civil and social unrest due to illegal Residential Segregation which continued even after the state courts ruled in 1948 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The trigger point came after a young African American motorist was stopped for a sobreity test and his mother was struck, inciting outrage and rioting in a systemically marginalised community Harry Ingram is a Crime Photographer and for the purposes of the riot he is Press (as he identifies himself to the white police officers that challenge him) Harry Ingram captures multiple images of the riot, culminating in having just 4 plates left, when he sees a that of a young, unarmed protestor on top of a car who cries out; "No-one needs to be made dead over getting some bread" and as Harry shoots the picture, the police shoot their guns, fatally wounding the young protester. One of the police notices Harry moving away and that he has a camera, immediately reacting to the potential implications and sets about him, smashing his camera and taking the film out, exposing it to the sunlight, except, he removes the wrong film from the wrong camera Harry is knocked unconscious and wakes up in a prison hospital, where his gf Anita Claire comes to visit him. She has a litany of secrets of her own, that she is terrified to share with Harry, but she braves going back into the fray of the riot to retrieve the photographic plate and get it to the press. The picture is then plastered across the media, and while it does not show the flash of the gun that shot the fatal bullet, it creates an outcry across LA from one side and denial from the other. However, there is more than one soul lost on this day and HArry is soon asked to seek out Mose Tolbert for his GF's mother, which turns up a lot more than he was expecting An outstanding piece of fact/fiction crossover that smashes beyond the genre of crime thriller and into literature. HIghly compelling and utterly immersive. Brilliant Thank you to Netgalley, RB Media | Recorded Books, the author Gary Phillips and narrator Leon Nixon for this awesome ALC”

About Gary Phillips

Gary Phillips has published novels, comics, novellas, short stories and edited or co-edited several anthologies, including the Anthony-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Almost thirty years after its publication, his debut, Violent Spring, was named one of the essential crime novels of Los Angeles. He was also a writer and co-producer on Snowfall, a show streaming on Hulu about crack and the CIA in 1980s South Central, where he grew up.