Only the Wicked

Praise for Only the Wicked “[Phillips’] is a voice that should be heard and celebrated.” —Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of the Harry Bosch mysteries“We always hope that fiction will make us wise. Writing it, at least, seems to have made Gary Phillips wise far beyond his years: he knows that communicites are our new villages; that the same river runst through blues, bebop and rap; that the past, however we try to outdistance it, is always our present. Most importantly, he embraces the one true mystery: the mystery that we remain, forever, to one another.” —James Sallis, author of Drive “Gary Phillips is my kind of writer and Ivan Monk my kind of detective … . An unbeatable combination.” —Sara Paretsky, author of the V. I. Warshawski series“If Walter Mosley woke up the genre [of LA-based crime fiction] to the fact that contemporary Black writers can jam on noir like juke joints, long shadows, and mean streets as surely as Michael Jordan is the Mozart of the hardwood, then Gary Phillips … should positively nail its devotees to the wall.” —The Austin Chronicle“[Phillips] is a natural-born writer, who has clearly studied his predecessors, both literary and political, US and foreign. He writes a tight, unadorned phrase most of the time, which serves to highlight his excursions into traditional snappy dialogue and hard-boiled philosophy.” —The Morning Star“[A] gripping tale starring a genuinely charistmatic hero.” —Booklist Praise for the Ivan Monk Mysteries “In the tradition of Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op, Ivan Monk takes on a corrupt world … He makes us feel that the war he’s waging is for our own salvation.” —Walter Mosley, author of the Easy Rawlins series “These are novels that understand the importance of nurturing our communities and one another through despair; they suggest that even in the midst of profoundly disturbing circumstances, we can find, too, the everyday solaces of love and friendship.”—Anita Felicelli, Alta Journal“Seen through the prose of Gary Phillips, L.A. seems a new and much more interesting place.” —Tom Nolan, author of Ross Macdonald: A Biography “Phillips creates a harrowing, deft portrayal of post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, capturing its people, its mood and its language with a skill so keen that he verges on sleight of hand.” —Wendy Hornsby, author of the Maggie MacGowen series “Gary Phillips knows Los Angeles and gives readers a realistic, gritty portrait of this city in turmoil through the eyes of his African-American PI.” —The Armchair Detective “Monk’s sense of absurdity and his perfectly emulsified blend of toughness and tenderness make him one of crime fiction’s most appealing heroes.” —Booklist

Gary Phillips has published novels, comics, novellas, short stories and edited or co-edited several anthologies, including the Anthony-winning The Obama Inheritance- Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Almost 30 years after its publication, his debut, Violent Spring, was named one of the essential crime novels of Los Angeles. He also was a story editor on Snowfall, an FX show about crack and the CIA in 1980s South Central, where he grew up.