THE MYSTERY SERIES THAT LAUNCHED GARY PHILLIPSâS CAREER
Private eye Ivan Monkâs search for a killer lead to the unraveling of a far-reaching white supremacist conspiracy.
Robert âScatterboyâ Williams is a small-time hustler selling bogus Cartier watches in Pacific Shores, a port city south of Los Angeles. One day, heâs gunned down in the street, seemingly at random. Then drug dealer Ronny Aaron is shot and killed leaving a liquor store. Shortly thereafter, college student Jimmy Henderson is rendered comatose after two bullets to his body. The three victims have nothing in common save the neighborhood where they were shotâand the color of their skin.
The police categorize Scatterboyâs murder as business as usual. But his girlfriend convinces private eye Ivan Monk to find the killer. What looks like three unrelated shootings of Black men in Southern California will put Monk on a tortuous trail unraveling a larger nefarious plan: the rise of an extremist demagogue.
âMonk is an asset in the seriesâflawed, human, angry but levelheaded, brainy and brawny.ââLos Angeles Times Book Review