Max Décharné is an author, songwriter and musician. His latest book, Vulgar Tongues: An Alternative History of English Slang. One of his ten top slangy crime novels, as shared at the Guardian:If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes (1945)Read about the other entries on the list.
Pioneering black crime writer Chester Himes moved to Paris in the 1950s to escape American racism, afterwards creating the landmark series of crime novels featuring Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones. This, however, was written in California. Characters say rest the weight (sit down), you still on rubber? (do you have a car?) and use then-current jazz terms such as pad and groovy, two decades before the hippies thought they invented them.
--Marshal Zeringue
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