What I've been reading

"Cotton Comes to Harlem" by Chester Himes. Himes is an African American hard-boiled true crime writer of the first half of the 20th century, and "Cotton" is one of the best known of his "Harlem Detective" novels featuring dectives Gravedigger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson. In this caper, a con-man named "Reverend" Deke Jones is throwing a revival and having hard-working black families donate $1,000 each so he can send them back to Africa, but his real plan is to abscond with the cash. Unfortunately, during the revival, two white men rob the Reverend and get away with $87,000 and stuff it in a bale of cotton. The bale travels all over Harlem, and Deke, on the run, is trying to get it back, while other parties are also trying to get that bale of cotton, and Gravedigger and Coffin Ed are trying to find out exactly what is going on. This book was laugh-out-loud funny in places, and I would definitely read more by Chester Himes. Doing a little googling, I also found out the film adaptation was written by Ossie Davis, so I'm going to have to watch this at some point, too!

and

"Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox" by Eoin Colfer, as an audiobook. I really love this series. I really love that Artemis grows and evolves over the series and is much less of a one-note character by the time you get to "Time Paradox." Artemis has to go back in time to reverse a mistake he made in order to save his mother. Holly Short comes along for the trip, and nothing goes smoothly, pretty much right from the start. I really enjoy this series.

My full comments on both books here.