Perdition, U.S.A.

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.

Robert “Scatterboy” Williams is a small-time hustler selling bogus Cartier watches in Pacific Shores, a port city south of Los Angeles. One day, he’s 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 shot—and the color of their skin.

The police categorize Scatterboy’s 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.

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.