This riveting debut sees Black private eye Ivan Monk hired by the Korean American Merchant’s Group to look into the murder of Korean shop owner Kim Bong-Suh in Los Angeles, a year after the Rodney King riots. The murder seems to be racial, and Monk faces obstacles at every turn. Sadly, 30 years after its first publication, this hard-boiled novel’s trenchant political commentary still rings true. Yet the sensuousness in descriptions—falling stucco on a doughnut shop, the deft use of clippers in a barbershop, and Monk’s romantic relationship with smart Superior Court judge Jill Kodama—reels readers deep into scenes. While the page-turner sharply critiques race relations, politics, and wealth in L.A. and the plot is suspenseful, Gary Phillips has also written something meaningful, just shy of a love note, about the city as it was and is experienced by its people.
‘Violent Spring’
Gary Phillips’s crime novel is the California Book Club’s November 2024 selection.
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