Gary Phillips Books in Order

After the Los Angeles riots, a rebuilding ceremony uncovers the body of a Korean shopkeeper. Private investigator Ivan Monk examines a killing widely assumed to be racially motivated, encountering institutional resistance, gang interests, and evidence pointing toward financial motives.

A hustler's girlfriend hires Ivan Monk after her partner is shot in a Southern California neighbourhood. Similar attacks on other Black men draw Monk beyond the apparent local crimes toward a white supremacist conspiracy extending across the West Coast.

A firebombing kills members of a Latino family in a Los Angeles housing project, intensifying racial and gang tensions. Ivan Monk investigates links to the Watts riots and entrenched corruption, only to find himself facing a murder indictment.

Former football star Zelmont Raines returns to Los Angeles seeking one more chance after injuries and personal troubles derail his career. Instead, he joins a team lawyer and an old friend in a plan to rob the club's criminally connected owner.

Former Las Vegas showgirl Martha Chainey earns her living transporting undeclared casino money. When armed thieves steal seven million dollars during a delivery, the people who entrusted her with it give her three days to recover their cash.

The deaths of an elderly former Negro League player and Monk's estranged cousin prompt a deeply personal investigation. Following connections to a controversial civil rights-era prosecution takes Ivan Monk from Los Angeles to Mississippi and into his family's troubled history.

A champion boxer is shot during a Las Vegas title fight, and millions in side-bet money vanish in the chaos. Casino courier Martha Chainey pursues the missing cash, but a friend's death turns the assignment into a personal search for justice.

Transport specialist Marley accepts a million-dollar assignment to deliver Colombian drug boss Lina Guzmán from Tijuana to Sacramento within a day. Her plans to abandon the criminal organisation provoke a former lieutenant, sending assassins after them throughout California.

Detective Sergeant Rafael Santian leads an elite Los Angeles police team accustomed to bending rules in its fight against gangs. Escalating criminal activity and an ambitious prosecutor's scrutiny expose the unit to a confrontation that blurs loyalties and legal boundaries.

In this graphic crime story, former war hero Danny works as a bodyguard for escorts. A murder entangles him with two Los Angeles police officers, pulling their contrasting public and private lives into the city's criminal underworld.

Thirteen stories follow Los Angeles private investigator Ivan Monk through a city of political manoeuvring, street crime, Hollywood ambition, and occasional supernatural oddities. The collection includes The King Alfred Plan, a novelette written specifically for this volume.

This historical novel follows Black soldiers overseas and a young Pittsburgh Courier reporter on the American home front during World War II. Battlefield action and a murder mystery unfold against the contradictions of fighting for a country that enforces segregation.

Vietnam veteran Magrady searches Los Angeles's Skid Row for a missing friend who uses a wheelchair. The inquiry brings him up against powerful interests and the effects of gentrification, as memories of war complicate his efforts to discover the truth.

Private investigator Nate Hollis searches Los Angeles for a professional basketball player wanted for murder. The volume also includes two illustrated prose cases involving slain superhero impersonators and a strange world of cattle, lowriders and dangerous company.

Career criminal O'Conner hides in a deteriorating gated community while planning a heist during the Great Recession. As rival drug gangs approach a confrontation, he must decide where his new neighbours fit into his plans and loyalties.

Gary Phillips gathers crime stories ranging from California noir to drug deals in the bayou. Grifters, killers and desperate schemers navigate dangerous situations, with dark humor and even zombies complicating their attempts to get ahead.

Wealthy entrepreneur Luke Warfield, known as the Essex Man, pursues the person who murdered his foster father. His fighting skills and scientific knowledge face a test as the investigation exposes hidden aspects of his past and a threat of mass killing.

Ten prose adventures introduce unconventional superheroes, from a hit man serving Heaven to a teenager inheriting a wartime heroine’s powers. Several of these figures must join forces against a billionaire whose plans threaten the climate.

Gifted drifter Ned Brenner joins a team of specialists to stop a villain from deploying a devastating anti-gravity device. His abilities in fighting, motorcycle riding, and chess are tested when an undertaking with millions of lives at stake becomes personally dangerous.

McBleak moves comfortably among wealthy people while secretly planning to steal their fortunes. Targeting a greedy man's gains becomes increasingly risky as his scheme falters and he wonders whether his girlfriend has recognised the deception behind his social persona.

In 1980s Times Square, peep-show worker Roxy Bell becomes entangled in a pornographer’s murder. With her punk-rock ex Nick Zero, she follows a trail of corruption while criminals, police and powerful city figures close in.

An emergency-room doctor accustomed to treating the damage caused by gunfire acquires a handgun herself. This Chicago crime novella follows the pressures behind her decision and the consequences as she puts a plan into motion on the South Side.

Con artists Sam and Rachel arrive in Hollywood to work another elaborate deception while evading a pursuing mobster. Posing as a life coach and an independent producer backed by tech money, they manoeuvre toward a mark before complications disrupt the scheme.

This pulp adventure reimagines explorer Matthew Henson in Jazz Age Harlem, hired to protect a religious leader and his kidnapped adult daughter. Gangsters, powerful financiers, and Nikola Tesla's inventions converge around an Arctic meteor fragment with dangerous potential.

In 1963 Los Angeles, Korean War veteran and news photographer Harry Ingram investigates the suspicious death of an old army friend. Evidence in his photographs challenges the official accident ruling, drawing him into danger amid mounting racial tensions.

Seventeen pulp stories bring together masked vigilantes, alien invaders, supernatural killers and mad scientists. Gary Phillips mixes crime, science fiction and horror as unlikely heroes confront threats ranging from neighborhood hauntings to schemes for world domination.

During the 1965 Watts uprising, photographer Harry Ingram captures a police killing and becomes a target himself. A missing-person investigation then leads him through robberies and hidden agendas while the LAPD watches his growing public profile.

Professional thief O’Conner leaves semi-retirement to organize a raid on a tech billionaire’s concealed bunker. As his crew prepares for a huge payday beneath a basketball arena, old enemies and unresolved history threaten the operation.

A crew of thieves escapes a dangerous heist with seven million dollars and plans for new lives. These linked stories follow their separate paths as betrayal and unforeseen consequences turn a successful score into fresh trouble.

Cameron Quinn is determined to climb the criminal hierarchy of Los Angeles. His ruthless pursuit of a name and a fortune takes him into an underworld where betrayal, ambition and violence shape every opportunity.

Three Black cartoonists struggle to create and survive in late-1950s Manhattan. Racism, political pressure and personal compromises test their friendship as the civil rights movement and the Red Scare reshape the world around them.

San Francisco money launderer Jeff Sinclair is drawn into cleaning twenty-five million dollars stolen from a casino. As the job grows dangerous, he must reckon with the crimes his expertise enables and find a way out.