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A Rage in Harlem
- A Grave Digger & Coffin Ed Novel
- Narrated by: Samuel L. Jackson
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's summary
Audie Award Nominee, Fiction, 2013
Academy Award nominee Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction, Star Wars films), fresh off the success of his uproarious, Audie-nominated performance of the mock children’s book Go the F**k to Sleep, delivers a swaggering, darkly-humored rendering of Chester Himes’ classic first novel.
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- Narrated by: Michael Boatman
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.
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Beware of Mysterious Sexy Women with Big Suitcases
- By Jefferson on 02-13-11
By: Walter Mosley
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Back Bay
- Peter Fallon, Book 1
- By: William Martin
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 17 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Meet the Pratt clan. Driven men. Determined women. Through six turbulent generations, they would pursue a lost Paul Revere treasure. And turn a family secret into an obsession that could destroy them. Here is the novel that launched William Martin’s astonishing literary career and became an instant bestseller. From the grit and romance of old Boston to exclusive - and dangerous - Back Bay today, this sweeping saga paints an unforgettable portrait of a powerful dynasty beset by the forces of history...and a heritage of greed, lust, murder and betrayal.
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Good story idea, disappointing production.
- By Kathleen on 04-23-20
By: William Martin
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A Stone for Danny Fisher
- By: Harold Robbins
- Narrated by: Charles Leggett
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Born into a family of modest means and respectability, Danny Fisher was gradually driven downward into the world of crime, racketeering and poverty. His bitterness, his homesickness over the loss of the house in Brooklyn that was given to him for his eighth birthday, and his feud with his harsh father, pulled him one way; his natural decency and his love for a sweet Italian girl, Nellie Petito, pulled him another.
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My teenage read.
- By A. Mitchell on 11-11-11
By: Harold Robbins
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Cop Town
- By: Karin Slaughter
- Narrated by: Kathleen Early
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Atlanta, 1974: It's Kate Murphy's first day on the job, and the Atlanta Police Department is seething after the murder of an officer. Before the day has barely begun, she already suspects she's not cut out to be a cop. Her male uniform is too big, she can't handle a gun, and she's rapidly learning that the APD is hardly a place that welcomes women. Worse still, in the ensuing manhunt she'll be partnered with Maggie Lawson, a cop with her own ax to grind.
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Outstanding, Gutsy Crime Novel Read by a Master
- By Chip Atkinson on 07-08-14
By: Karin Slaughter
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Ill Wind
- An Anna Pigeon Novel
- By: Nevada Barr
- Narrated by: Joanna Gleason
- Length: 2 hrs and 51 mins
- Abridged
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Haunted by personal demons and cut off from her friends and family, Anna Pigeon seeks solace in the quiet ruins of Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park. But the solitude is soon interrupted. A mysterious illness is afflicting tourists to the park. When an asthmatic child dies and a ranger colleague - and friend - is murdered, Anna must find out the truth.
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Ban Abridgements!
- By Karen on 01-26-08
By: Nevada Barr
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Night Life
- By: David C. Taylor
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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New York City, 1954. The Cold War is heating up, Senator Joe McCarthy is running a witch hunt for communists in America, the newly formed CIA is fighting a turf battle with the FBI to see who will be the primary United States intelligence agency, and the bodies of murdered young men are turning up all over the city.
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terrific in every way
- By Martha on 04-12-16
By: David C. Taylor
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Nine Lives
- Mystery, Magic, Death, and Life in New Orleans
- By: Dan Baum
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 14 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Nines Lives is a multivoiced biography of a dazzling, surreal, and imperiled city, told through the lives of nine unforgettable characters and bracketed by two epic storms: Hurricane Betsy, which transformed New Orleans in the 1960s, and Hurricane Katrina, which nearly destroyed it. Dan Baum brings this kaleidoscopic portrait to life, showing us what was lost in the storm and what remains to be saved.
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Do not miss if you're interested in New Orleans
- By Kelly on 03-22-18
By: Dan Baum
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Young Al Capone
- The Untold Story of Scarface in New York, 1899-1925
- By: William Balsamo, John Balsamo
- Narrated by: Daniel May
- Length: 8 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Many people are familiar with the story of Al Capone, the legendary Chicago gangster best known for orchestrating the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. But few are aware that Capone’s remarkable story began in the Navy Yard section of Brooklyn, New York. Tutored by the likes of infamous mobsters Johnny Torrio and Frankie Yale, young Capone’s disquieting demeanor, combined with the “technical advice” he learned from these shady teachers, contributed to the molding of a brutal criminal....
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Is this fiction or non-fiction?
- By Gerry B. on 11-03-20
By: William Balsamo, and others
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The Invaders Plan
- Mission Earth, Volume 1
- By: L. Ron Hubbard
- Narrated by: Full Cast
- Length: 3 hrs and 8 mins
- Abridged
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They are the Voltarians of Voltar - an empire 110 planets strong. They are already among us. And the invasion is about to begin...in a hundred years or so. Or is it? The truth is far more sinister. Undercover, underground, and out of sight, the invaders plan what may in fact be a massive diversion. In the darkest recesses of Voltar’s Coordinated Information Apparatus (otherwise known as the CIA), a tyrant of terror sets out to exploit the invasion in order to seize power. All that stands in his way is a planet that doesn’t exist.
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overly abridged
- By Pielle Szabo on 01-10-17
By: L. Ron Hubbard
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Old People Turn into Chores For The Young
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When Myriam decides to return to work as a lawyer after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their son and daughter. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic Paris apartment, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau.
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not what I expected based on the hype
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The Day of the Jackal
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One of the most celebrated thrillers ever written, The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of an anonymous Englishman who in, the spring of 1963, was hired by Colonel Marc Rodin, operations chief of the O.A.S., to assassinate General de Gaulle.
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Tour de montagnes russes (roller coaster ride)!!!!
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What listeners say about A Rage in Harlem
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Julie W. Capell
- 03-22-12
Go the f--k to Audible and get this now!
You don't have to be a connoisseur of noir thrillers to enjoy this fast-paced tale of love and greed in 1950s Harlem. Even though my only exposure to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler is via Humphrey Bogart, I could immediately see the parallels between those stories and this one, albeit “A Rage in Harlem” features an all-black cast of characters. And they are every bit as strange and memorable as the Fat Man or Joel Cairo or Vivien Rutledge. A woman who might be good or might be bad, crooked policemen and a junkie/stoolie who dresses up as a nun are just a few of the unforgettable characters whose crazed and misguided actions contribute to the action.
And just when you think you are reading a really well-done, though lightweight, tale of the dumbest con men ever, something happens that turns the book on its head. The action gets real and the writing gets even better. I was listening to this as an audiobook and found the following passage so compelling I rewound the track multiple times just so I could transcribe it. I can’t set it up completely without giving away one of the biggest plot points, but suffice it to say that at this point in the action, the whistle of a passing elevated train goes off and the sound cuts through to the bone:
Shaking the entire tenement city
Shaking the sleeping Black people in their lice-ridden beds
Shaking the ancient bones and the aching muscles and the TB’d lungs and the uneasy fetuses of unwedded girls
Shaking the plaster from ceilings, mortar from between the bricks of building walls
Shaking the rats between the walls
Shaking the cockroaches crawling over kitchen sinks and leftover food
Shaking the sleeping flies hibernating in lumps like bees behind the casings of the windows
Shaking the fat blood-filled bed bugs crawling over Black skin
Shaking the fleas, making them hop
Shaking the sleeping dogs in their filthy pallets
Shaking the sleeping cats
Shaking the clogged toilets, loosening the filth
This is a very gifted writer who deserves to be better known. There is just enough detail in the descriptions to set the scenes, lots of lines that made me laugh out loud (a taxi driver whose cab has just been commandeered is described as being so alarmed “even the back of his head looked scared”) and plenty of over-the-top, blackly humorous violence to make Quinton Tarantino happy. All of that given a darkly, hysterically fantastic reading by Samuel L. Jackson on the Audible audiobook version adds up to one helluva good listen.
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- Kitty
- 05-28-12
A Visit to Another Era
An astonishing experience for a suburban white woman, to be transported to Harlem in the 1950s, and Himes (whom I'd heard of, but never read before) made it an unforgettable trip. The story is deliciously convoluted and the characters are perfectly presented, universal figures, yet each utterly one of a kind.
I was a little confused at first, because the lead characters in the series appear more than halfway through the story, and appear as secondary characters. This was Himes's first in the series, so perhaps he didn't realize he would use them again at the time he wrote it.
What set the whole thing sizzling was Samuel L. Jackson's extraordinary, sharp and loving performance, making each character uniquely memorable. I can't say enough about how much his power and enthusiasm got me sucked into the story completely.
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- Ilana
- 04-03-12
Hardboiled Goodness
I'd heard of Chester Himes's Harlem Cycle before, but if it hadn't been for this new "A-List" collection and Samuel L. Jackson's narration, it might have been a while yet before I'd gotten around to this series. Taking place in Harlem, the story revolves around a naive man called Jackson who, when we first meet him, gets taken in by a team of fraudsters who convince him they can "raise" denominations of 10 dollars into 100 dollar bills. There's plenty of humour there, which combines well with the otherwise hardboiled world of gangsterism, drugs and violence. Not for the faint of heart, but deeply satisfying if you like your mysteries served up on the tough side.
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- Darwin8u
- 08-18-18
Two mules hitched to the same wagon
"Colored folks and trouble, Jackson thought, like two mules hitched to the same wagon."
- Chester Himes, A Rage in Harlem
Funny as hell. Brilliant. Absurd. Subversive. This shit was published in 1959. Some of the best AAVE I've ever read and the imagery Himes pulls out kills me. This is my first Himes, but definitely not my last. I think I'll read 'The Real Cool Killers' and 'If He Hollers Let Him Go.' I spent a couple days in Harlem earlier this year with my wife. I love recognizing the geography Himes describes. Its been 60 years, but somethings, apparently, in New York, don't change much. Here's a good example of his fluency:
"Looking eastward from the towers of Riverside Church, perched among the university buildings on the high banks of the Hudson River, in a valley far below, waves of gray rooftops distort the perspective like the surface of a sea. Below the surface, in the murky waters of fetid tenements, a city of black people who are convulsed in desperate living, like the voracious churning of millions of hungry cannibal fish. Blind mouths eating their own guts. Stick in a hand and draw back a nub. That is Harlem."
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20 people found this helpful
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- Rebecca R.
- 09-11-12
Excellent Reading!
Would you consider the audio edition of A Rage in Harlem to be better than the print version?
Absolutely.
What does Samuel L. Jackson bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Samuel L. Jackson brings the characters alive with the many voices he affects for the different characters. My favorite voice was the character of Goldie. The reading really painted the story in my mind as I listened to it.
Any additional comments?
The story itself is full of crazy action, from start to finish. Some of the action just gets ridiculous in places, although for the time period the story was set in perhaps the action is all appropriate. It is not possible to be more specific without handing out spoilers. Hence only giving the story a 4 stars, since some of the "ridiculous" bordered on "unbeleiveable". Samuel L. Jackson lent an authenticity to the narration, in both voicing and accent, that brought the text and characters to life.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Maria
- 05-08-12
Engrossing and Entertaining!
If you could sum up A Rage in Harlem in three words, what would they be?
This was a great book. The story was attention-grabbing and enjoyable. Samuel L. Jackson was great. He brought life to the characters and that kept me wanting more.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Yes.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Sharon Marchand
- 04-15-12
Awed by Samuel Jackson's Talent
What did you love best about A Rage in Harlem?
I loved the way the book made me feel like I was in the story. I felt as if I could interrupt any of the characters to ask them a question. I felt like I was in the car chases as well as needing to duck when Grave Digger starts shooting in the dark. The book has so much energy that I would feel exhausted for Jackson playing all of these emotionally charged characters.
What was one of the most memorable moments of A Rage in Harlem?
The most memorable moment of the story was when Jackson finds his brother's body and can't let on who he is.
What about Samuel L. Jackson’s performance did you like?
I loved the way he could change from one character to another in the many heated conversations. It made you feel like you were actually listening to three, four or five different people and not just the one voice of Samuel Jackson.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
It made me both laugh and cry. Jackson sister as Sister Gabrielle was both funny and sad as the brother cons people for money to support a drug habit. It was emotional when he/she is killed so violently. The book brought the reality of living in a city such as Harlem and how people have to husle to survive.
Any additional comments?
I don't think I could read this book myself and get half as much out of it as I did listening to the dynamic voices of characters that Samuel Jackson brings to life!! BRAVO!!! Hope to find more book by him in this format.
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- WILLIAM
- 06-11-12
Great performance by Samuel L. Jackson.
If you could sum up A Rage in Harlem in three words, what would they be?
The story was fun and fast paced from a different era. Samuel L. Jackson makes the book come to life with great infections.
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- Lynda Rands
- 06-11-12
PHENOMENAL
Chester Himes is an unappreciated master of noir fiction. His writing sings and Samuel L. Jackson gets the tune exactly right. The story is entertaining, characters are exceptionally well drawn and the violence is as brutal as it is unexpected. Give it a try.
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- Josephine Winfrey
- 05-05-12
Not bad
I started this series on a whim and because I wanted to see if Samuel L. Jackson was a good narrator. Well........he's great! I enjoyed the story line as well. Looking forward to the next book with another one of my favorite narrators, Dion Graham.
Dion, you've got some big shoes to fill!
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