Gary Phillips

The new Captain America has a big shield to carry. Is he up to the task? Find out in these subversive, exciting and uplifting short stories inspired by the Marvel comic book universe, written by celebrated Black authors.The new Captain America has a heavy shield to hold. As a Black man in America, Sam Wilson knows he has to be twice as good to get half as much credit. He must be a paragon of virtue for a nation that has mixed feelings towards him. In these thirteen brand-new stories, the all-new Captain America must thwart an insurrectionist plot, travel back in time, foil a racist conspiracy, and save the world over and over again.As the Falcon, Sam Wilson was the first African American super hero in mainstream comic books. Sam’s trials and tribulations reflect the struggles many Black Americans go through today, as Sam balances fighting supervillains and saving the world with the difficulties of being the first Black Captain America. This action-packed anthology inspired by the Marvel comic book universe, will see Sam team up with familiar friends like Steve Rogers, Redwing and Nomad, while fighting Hydra, Sabretooth, Kingpin, and other infamous villains.These are stories of death-defying courage, Black love and self-discovery. These are the stories of a super hero learning what it means to be a symbol.These are the stories of Sam Wilson.Featuring original stories by Maurice Broaddus, Jesse J. Holland, Gar Anthony Haywood, Nicole Givens Kurtz, Kyoko M., Sheree Renee Thomas, Gary Phillips, Danian Jerry, Gloria J. Browne Marshall, Glenn Parris, Alex Simmons.

A professional thief takes the chance of a lifetime--his biggest score yet--in this tense heist novel set in the heart of contemporary Los Angeles. After decades of close calls, O'Conner--the former "Warlord of Willow Ridge"--spends most of his time in semi-retirement, running his legitimate businesses and playing pickleball. Except for his longtime girlfriend, no one in his wealthy suburb is the wiser to his double-life. But O'Conner's past refuses to stay there, and when he is approached with a job he can't resist, he agrees to mastermind his biggest score yet: a multi-million-dollar raid of a tech billionaire's secret bunker, which is hidden underneath his newly constructed basketball arena. As the job goes down, testing O'Conner's mettle with new challenges, the promise of the score attracts ghosts from his past that he thought were long buried. Interwoven with flashbacks to O'Conner's coming-of-age in Southern Los Angeles, this pulse-pounding crime novel is both an homage to Donald Westlake's Parker series and a rich portrait of a morally gray thief at a crossroads.

Former Vegas showgirl Martha Chainey is a statuesque WOC with a penchant for martial arts. Done with the spotlight and the forty-pound headdresses, Martha’s foregone the usual path of winding up arm candy and has taken up a career as a courier of off-the-books money. Cold, hard cash. When a former colleague (with a more legit line of work) asks her to discreetly recover 10 million dollars in stolen funds, of course Martha’s on the case. The mission takes her all over California and through more than a few mooks…but will her head-slamming sleuth skills be enough to recover the cash? Cold Hard Cash brings one of crime writer Gary Phillips' heroines, Martha Chainey, from novels to comics, with the creative team of Gary Phillips, Adriana Melo, John Kalisz, and Tom Napolitano. Collects issues #1-5 of Cold Hard Cash, originally released digitally by Comixology Originals, in print from ABLAZE for the first time.

In the follow-up to One-Shot Harry, fearless crime photographer and occasional private eye Harry Ingram finds himself in the LAPD's crosshairs after capturing damning evidence of police brutality. An atmospheric dive into a city on the brink that's brimming with remarkable historical detail, Ash Dark as Night is perfect for fans of Walter Mosley and James Ellroy. Los Angeles, August 1965. Anger and pent-up frustrations boil over in the Watts neighborhood after a traffic stop of two Black motorists. As the Watts riots explode, crime photographer Harry Ingram snaps photos at the scene, including images of the police as they unleash batons, dogs, and water hoses on civilians. When he captures the image of an unarmed activist being shot down by the cops, he winds up in the hospital, beaten, his camera missing. Proof of the unjust killing seems lost--until Ingram's girlfriend, Anita Claire, retrieves the hidden film in a daring rescue. The photo makes front-page news. A recuperating Ingram is approached by Betty Payton, a comrade of Anita's mother, who wants Ingram's help tracking down her business associate Moses "Mose" Tolbert, last seen during the riots. Ingram follows the investigation down a rabbit hole of burglary rings, bank robberies, looted cash, and clandestine agendas--all the while grappling with his newfound fame, which puts him in the sightlines of LAPD's secretive intelligence division. Ash Dark as Night is a nail-biting ride-along through midcentury Los Angeles with a crime fiction legend in the driver's seat.

A hard-bitten crew of professional thieves pull off the score of their lives, coming away with seven million in cash. Like any heist there are some unforeseen complications, and unfortunately they don’t get away without a few bodies dropping. But despite this, they get away with the swag. Seven million. Enough to change their lives, make new identities, start fresh. But that’s when the real trouble begins... In this unique, riveting, linked anthology, we follow each member of the crew of culprits as they go their separate ways after the heist, and watch as this perfect score ends up a perfect nightmare. Featuring stories penned by acclaimed writers Brett Battles, Gar Anthony Haywood, Zoe¨ Sharp, Manuel Ramos, Jessica Kaye, Joe Clifford and David Corbett, CULPRITS examines what happens next to these criminals once they take their cut and go their separate ways, only to find that the end of the heist was the beginning of their troubles.

In this collection, you'll find double crossers getting crossed, two-bit hucksters out to make that one last con, a long-gone revolutionary's fraught homecoming, a heist gone sideways, a dying hitman with explosive secrets, a square john taking a big step out of line, and...zombies crawling from the grave lusting for cocaine.

Black private eye Ivan Monk takes on his most personal mystery to date--and chases answers deep into America's shameful past. Half a century ago, Old Man Spears was a hero of the ballpark. In an age when baseball was segregated, he played in the Negro Leagues, providing hope for a generation of oppressed African Americans. Decades later, Spears is an old man in a barbershop making ends meet. An offhand comment about a former teammate, Kennesaw Riles, shocks one of his customers, private eye Ivan Monk, who has deeply buried memories of a ball-playing cousin by that name. Monk knows little of Riles, who has been on the outs with his family since his questionable testimony put civil rights leader Damon Creel behind bars for murder back in the 60s. But before Monk can get the full story, Spears drops dead. Days later, Kennesaw Riles follows suit. Monk knows that the timing is not a coincidence. To understand the pair of deaths as well as his own past, Monk digs into his family history. He follows the mystery to Mississippi, where he further unravels the murder of two civil rights activists and connects the dots to a group of Mississippi businessmen who may not have changed their ways as much as they claim. Far from Los Angeles, the tenacious P.I. is forced to confront a brand of hatred that he thought had died with Jim Crow. An LA thriller with roots in the Deep South, Only the Wicked weaves together baseball, blues, and backwoods politics in iconic P.I. Ivan Monk's most personal and politically resonant case to date.

When Black private eye Ivan Monk takes on a case in a housing project in South Los Angeles, he finds himself facing off with corrupt police and gang members--and indicted for murder. Heat is building in the Rancho Tajuata Housing Projects--and not just because it's summer in L.A. When a Mexican family is killed by a firebombing, local rage threatens to grow out of control. The pressure is on to solve this case quickly to help deescalate the tense situation. At the request of the tenant's security force, P.I. Ivan Monk is called in to find the killer. To track the murderer down, Monk must delve into a tangled history leading all the way back to the 1965 Watts riots--a hunt that reveals layers of buried racism and corruption. Monk sorts through the complexities of gang conflicts and governmental kickbacks, only to find himself at odds with the police, disillusioned by his mentor and, after a fierce struggle with some gang members, under indictment for murder. Monk must race to clear his name before time runs out, and a bad night falls on the Rancho Tajuata Projects, this time for good . . .

Black private eye Ivan Monk's search for a connection between three Black men murdered in Los Angeles leads to the unraveling of a white supremacist conspiracy that spans the West Coast. The mystery series that launched Gary Phillips's career. Scatterboy Williams was a small-time hustler selling bogus Cartier watches in the dives of Pacific City, a port just south of Los Angeles, until a stranger guns him down in the street. Then drug dealer Ronny Aaron is shot leaving the liquor store. Next, college student Jimmy Henderson just barely survives his two bullet wounds. The three victims have nothing in common besides the neighborhood where they were shot and the color of their skin. When the police let Scatterboy's murder fall through the cracks, his girlfriend hires private eye Ivan Monk to find the killer. What looks like three unrelated shootings of Black men in Southern California will put Monk on the trail of a racist conspiracy--and white supremacists hatching nefarious plans with the potential to upend life along the entire West Coast.

The mystery that launched Gary Phillips's career: Black private eye Ivan Monk investigates the murder of a Korean shop owner in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. This reissued edition features an introduction by Walter Mosley. In 1992, Los Angeles burned. In the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots, a ground-breaking ceremony at the infamous intersection of Florence and Normandie unearths the body of a Korean shop owner. Black private eye Ivan Monk searches for the killer--many suspect the motives for the murder were racial. But then another body turns up, and while the FBI and the Rolling Daltons--the largest gang in the city--dog Monk's trail, Monk begins to question just how many people will be involved, and how many will die before he can find the truth.

In the follow-up to One-Shot Harry, fearless photographer and occasional private eye Harry Ingram takes on a missing persons case while at a professional crossroads after one of his photos puts him on the LAPD's radar. An atmospheric dive into a city on the brink that's brimming with remarkable historical detail, Ash Dark as Night is perfect for fans of Walter Mosley and James Ellroy. Los Angeles, August 1965. Anger and pent-up frustrations boil over in the Watts neighborhood after a traffic stop of two Black motorists. As the Watts riots explode, crime photographer Harry Ingram snaps photos at the scene, including images of the police as they unleash batons, dogs, and water hoses on civilians. When he captures the image of an unarmed activist being shot down by the cops, he winds up in the hospital, beaten, his camera missing. Proof of the unjust killing seems lost--until Ingram's girlfriend, Anita Claire, retrieves the hidden film in a daring rescue. The photo makes front-page news. A recuperating Ingram is approached by Betty Payton, a comrade of Anita's mother, who wants Ingram's help tracking down her business associate Moses "Mose" Tolbert, last seen during the riots. Ingram follows the investigation down a rabbit hole of burglary rings, bank robberies, looted cash, and clandestine agendas--all the while grappling with his newfound fame, which puts him in the sightlines of LAPD's secretive intelligence division. Told in a wry voice, Ash Dark as Night is a nail-biting ride-along through midcentury Los Angeles with a crime fiction legend in the driver's seat.

Award-winning author, screenwriter, and editor Gary Phillips gathers his most thrilling, outlandish, and madcap pulp fiction in an 17-story collection that straddles the line between bizarro, science fiction, noir, and superhero classics. Aztec vampires, astral projecting killers, oxygen stealing bombs, undercover space rangers, aliens occupying Los Angeles, right wing specters haunting the ’hood, masked vigilantes, and mad scientists in their underground lairs plotting world domination populate the stories in this rip-snorting collection. In these pages grindhouse melds with blaxploitation along with strong doses of B movie hardcore drive-in fare. Phillips, editor of the Anthony Award-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, and author of One-Shot Harry and Matthew Henson and the Ice Temple of Harlem, said this about pulp. “The most common definition of pulp is it’s fast-paced, a story containing out there characters and a wild plot. There is that. But certainly, as we’ve now arrived at the era of retro-pulp, these stories have elements of characterization: not just action, but a glimpse behind the steely eyes of these doers of incredible deeds.” As an added bonus, Phillips resurrects Phantasmo, a Golden Age comics character created by Black artist-writer E.C. Stoner in an all-new outing of ethereal doings (includes 4 original illustrations by cover artist Adam Shaw).

Subjects Suitable for Poetry is the latest collection from former Carrboro, North Carolina, poet laureate Gary Phillips. In these 20 poems, Phillips explores family, nature, and his rural upbringing, interwoven and inseparable.

Race and civil rights in 1963 Los Angeles provide a powerful backdrop in Gary Phillips's riveting mystery about an African American crime scene photographer seeking justice for a friend--perfect for fans of Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, and George Pelecanos. LOS ANGELES, 1963: Korean War veteran Harry Ingram earns a living as a news photographer and occasional process server: chasing police radio calls and dodging baseball bats. With racial tensions running high on the eve of Martin Luther King's Freedom Rally, Ingram risks becoming a victim at every crime scene he photographs. When Ingram hears about a deadly automobile accident on his police scanner, he recognizes the vehicle described as belonging to his good friend and old army buddy, a white jazz trumpeter. The LAPD declares the car crash an accident, but when Ingram develops his photos, he sees signs of foul play. Ingram feels compelled to play detective, even if it means putting his own life on the line. Armed with his wits, his camera, and occasionally his Colt .45, "One-Shot" Harry plunges headfirst into the seamy underbelly of LA society, tangling with racists, leftists, gangsters, zealots, and lovers as he attempts to solve the mystery. Master storyteller and crime fiction legend Gary Phillips has filled the pages of One-Shot Harry with fascinating historical cameos, wise-cracks, tenderness, and an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride of a plot with consequences far beyond one dead body.

How does witnessing a crime change a person? This powerful collection of stories by a star-studded roster of contributors examines this very question, with proceeds benefitting the Alliance for Safe Traffic Stops. Inspired by recent true events, the all-original stories in Witnesses for the Dead are set in motion by the act of witnessing. The characters who populate these pages are not themselves the perpetrators of the crimes they see, but as they grapple with what to do--take action or retreat into the shadows--their lives are indelibly changed. In "Envy" by Christopher Chambers, a sweet, shy wallflower looks on as something horrific happens in his neighborhood--revealing something horrific about himself. Agatha Award-winner Richie Narvaez's "The Gardener of Roses" sees a Puertorrique a college student on the run from the FBI for her accidental involvement in a "terrorist" plot. Anthony Award-winner Gary Phillips confronts police corruption in "Spiders and Fly." And the protagonist of "A Family Matter" by IPPY Award-winner Sarah M. Chen investigates the murder of a stranger, leading her to question the political structure of Taiwan entirely. Other stories feature a brothel, the film industry, immigrant detention centers at the Mexico-US border, World War II-torn France, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The stories are incisive, unflinching, wry, dark, and, in some cases, terrifying. You'll ask yourself: If I saw what they saw, what would I do? Edited by Anthony Award-winner Gary Phillips and Shamus Award-winner Gar Anthony Haywood, the collection includes contributions from NAACP Image Award-winner Pamela Samuels Young, New York Times bestsellers Cara Black and Tod Goldberg, Edgar Award-winner SJ Rozan, Agatha Award-winner Richie Narvaez, and more.

The Akashic Noir Series' forensic study of Southern California sharpens its focus on one of Los Angeles's most recognized neighborhoods.Featuring brand-new stories by: Steph Cha, Nikolas Charles, Tananarive Due, Larry Fondation, Gar Anthony Haywood, Naomi Hirahara, Emory Holmes II, Roberto Lovato, Penny Mickelbury, Gary Phillips, Eric Stone, Jervey Tervalon, Jeri Westerson, and D sir e Zamorano.From the Introduction by Gary Phillips"Within these pages you'll find stories of those walking the straight and narrow--until something untoward happens. Maybe it's someone taking a step out of line, getting caught up in circumstances spiraling out of their control. Maybe they're planning the grift, the grab . . . whatever it is to finally put them over. Other times the steps they take are to get themselves or people they care about out from under. You'll find the offerings in these pages are a rich mix of tone--tales told of hope, survival, revenge, and triumph. Excursions beyond the headlines and the hype.The settings herein reflect South Central today or chronicle its colorful past, such as the days of the jazz joints along Central Avenue . . . From South Park to East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, from the borderlands of Watts to the one-time Southern Pacific railroad tracks paralleling Slauson Avenue, take a tour of a section of Los Angeles that may be unfamiliar to you but you will get to know, at least a little, by the time you finish reading this entertaining and engaging anthology."

"If you're of a certain age, your perception of South Los Angeles might have been formed by riots and rappers. Or maybe you know it through television . . . But Gary Phillips, who grew up there, has a more historically complex point of view . . . For Phillips and the 13 other writers who contributed to his just-published anthology, those narrower, pop-infused renditions are just the tip of the iceberg . . . with the result that their work--and their city--is much richer for the exercise." --Los Angeles Times "Let's make some space for crime fiction in miniature. Akashic Books offers its latest city-centric noir anthology with SOUTH CENTRAL NOIR (Akashic, 275 pp., paperback, $16.95), which includes 14 top-notch stories about one of Los Angeles's most chronicled neighborhoods. The editor, Gary Phillips--whose most recent novel is One-Shot Harry--has assembled a formidable group of writers that includes Jervey Tervalon, Tananarive Due, Naomi Hirahara, Steph Cha and Penny Mickelbury." --New York Times Book ReviewFeaturing brand-new stories by: Steph Cha, Nikolas Charles, Tananarive Due, Larry Fondation, Gar Anthony Haywood, Naomi Hirahara, Emory Holmes II, Roberto Lovato, Penny Mickelbury, Gary Phillips, Eric Stone, Jervey Tervalon, Jeri Westerson, and D sir e Zamorano. From the Introduction by Gary Phillips"Within these pages you'll find stories of those walking the straight and narrow--until something untoward happens. Maybe it's someone taking a step out of line, getting caught up in circumstances spiraling out of their control. Maybe they're planning the grift, the grab . . . whatever it is to finally put them over. Other times the steps they take are to get themselves or people they care about out from under. You'll find the offerings in these pages are a rich mix of tone--tales told of hope, survival, revenge, and triumph. Excursions beyond the headlines and the hype. The settings herein reflect South Central today or chronicle its colorful past, such as the days of the jazz joints along Central Avenue . . . From South Park to East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, from the borderlands of Watts to the one-time Southern Pacific railroad tracks paralleling Slauson Avenue, take a tour of a section of Los Angeles that may be unfamiliar to you but you will get to know, at least a little, by the time you finish reading this entertaining and engaging anthology."