Viper's Dream
Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger Award 2024
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- 6,49 €
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- 6,49 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
Winner
For fans of Colson Whitehead and Chester Himes, Viper's Dream is a gritty, daring look at the vibrant jazz scene of mid-century Harlem, and one man's dreams of making it big and finding love in a world that wants to keep him down.
1936: Clyde 'The Viper' Morton boards a train from Alabama to Harlem to chase his dreams of being a jazz musician. When his talent fails him, he becomes caught up in the dangerous underbelly of Harlem's drug trade. In this heartbreaking novel, one man must decide what he is willing to give up and what he wants to fight for.
'Viper's Dream is one Long High, sweeping us through Harlem from the 1930s to the 1960s on riffs of melancholy poetry cut through with the hardboiled beats of gangsters and their streets, leaving us hooked on a pure, true Jazz Noir Classic' - David Peace
'Viper's Dream, with its African-American gangster anti-hero, is reminiscent of Ray Celestin's jazz-oriented thrillers and similarly introduces real jazz greats into a fascinating melange' - The Financial Times
'Wonderful writing. From the first lines, you're there. You can almost see sweat flying off the strings of a slapped upright bass. You've been listening to the music, reading the book, for hours now - and it's still full of surprises' - James Sallis
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lamar (Ghosts of Saint-Michel) keeps the pages turning in this taut saga of an aspiring jazz musician's descent into Harlem's criminal underworld. In 1961, Clyde "The Viper" Morton is distraught after killing an unnamed victim; it's not his first murder, but it's the first one he regrets. He calls a friend on the NYPD to report the death and is given three hours to flee the city before authorities arrive on the scene. The action then shifts back to 1936, as Morton leaves his Alabama hometown and the mother of his unborn child for New York City, with dreams of becoming a professional trumpeter. He bombs his first audition, and instead finds work shining shoes in a Harlem barbershop. Before long, he catches the attention of Abraham Orlinsky, a loan shark and drug dealer who fronts as a nightclub owner. Orlinsky hires Morton as an enforcer, dangling the promise of increased wages and luxury living, and Morton accepts the devil's bargain. The '30s and '60s timelines alternate throughout, building to the revelation of who Morton killed in the present, and why. Lamar dexterously uses the ping-ponging structure to ratchet up suspense and render the climactic payoff properly shocking. This sympathetic portrait of a violent antihero is hard not to wolf down in a single sitting.
