El extraño asesinato

Por Chester Himes

El encargado de una tienda de alimentación A&P es víctima de un robo enfrente de un apartamento donde se está celebrando un velatorio. El reverendo Short, un pastor evangélico adicto al brandy con opio, lo observa todo desde la ventana de uno de los dormitorios. Se inclina demasiado y cae al vacío: una cesta de pan que se encuentra delante de la panadería que hay debajo lo salva de la muerte. Cuando regresa al apartamento, asegura tener una visión de un hombre muerto. Fuera, en la misma cesta en la que aterrizó Short, yace el cuerpo de Valentine Haines.

¿Quién asesinó a Val? Grave Digger Jones y Coffin Ed Johnson son los encargados de averiguarlo.

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Ediciones Akal
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 5 abr 2010
• ISBN: 9788446037521

Comentarios para El extraño asesinato

[smiler69 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

How to describe this nutty plot? During a wake in the small hours of the morning, a preacher falls out the window from the third floor apartment and miraculously falls into a basket filled with bread sitting on the sidewalk, a shipment bound for the convenience store it sits in front of. The preacher makes his way back up to the apartment where the drunken guests are surprised to see him appear at the front door and refuse to believe his story. He invites them to see the bread basket for themselves, but when they all crowd at the window, they find another man laying in the bread, stabbed dead. A police investigation follows, during which all the attendants of the wake are questioned in turn. Of course, all the guests are connected to one another in some way, most of them have secrets to hide which are revealed in due course, but which one killed Val? Detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson are out to find out. Another fun romp into the 60s Harlem of Chester Himes, where gambling, booze, women, and strange characters are mingled in unique ways. Plenty of violence, but plenty of humour too make this a most intriguing crime series. I couldn't expect this book to be as good as the first in the series, A Rage in Harlem, but it held it's own and definitely made me want to discover the next instalment of the Harlem Cycle.