Violent Spring

by Gary Phillips
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Publish Date: December 26, 2011
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Overview

In the wake of the Rodney King riots, Ivan Monk investigates a cold murder

Just a few months ago, the corner of Florence and Normandie avenues was an inferno. Enraged by the jury that freed Rodney King's brutalizers, people took to the streets of Los Angeles to vent their anger on the city. For three days they smashed, looted, and burned, until South Central L.A. looked like Sarajevo. Now the city is trying to rebuild, and private eye Ivan Monk has come to watch the groundbreaking ceremony for a shopping center meant to symbolize the neighborhood's healing. But death is not finished with South Central. As the dignitaries' shovels sift through the soft California soil, the mayor's spade finds the corpse of a man named Bong Kim Suh, a murdered Korean shopkeeper. As he looks into the senseless killing, Monk finds that it wasn't racial anger that took Suh's life, but old-fashioned, colorblind greed.

Gary Phillips (b. 1955) is a critically acclaimed author of mysteries and graphic novels. Born in South Central Los Angeles, Phillips grew up reading comics and classic pulp fiction, and took inspiration from heroes like Doc Savage when he created his first series character, Ivan Monk, in the early 1990s. A private detective adept at navigating the racial tensions of modern Los Angeles, Monk has appeared in four novels and one short story collection, Monkology (2011). Phillips introduced his second series character, Martha Chainey, in High Hand (2000), and followed that rollicking tale of a showgirl's mafia troubles with two more books. Phillips has also found success with graphic novels, penning illustrated stories inspired by classic noir and pulps. When not writing, he spends his time with his family, his dog, and an occasional cigar. Phillips continues to live and work in Los Angeles. |||This book is sold in the US by Sony Electronics Inc. |||This book is sold in Canada by Sony Electronics Inc.

Author Information

Gary Phillips

Gary Phillips writes for several mediums from screenplays to comic books, and remembers vividly the days of disco and the fever that coke then crack unleashed. He is the author of several crime-fiction novels, including Bangers, and lives in Los Angeles.

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