The Big Gold Dream

At a Harlem street sermon by Sweet Prophet Brown, fanatical Alberta Wright tells the crowd that she had a dream about three apple pies that burst open, filling her kitchen with hundred dollar bills. Minutes later, she washes down a holy fifty-dollar bread crumb with some water blessed by the Sweet Prophet, goes into a fit, & drops dead. The story only gains momentum when the nickel-plated .38 wielding police duo of Grave Digger Jones & Coffin Ed Johnson are put on the case. The Big Gold Dream is one in a long series of violent, funny, & socially relevant crime thrillers by Chester Himes, who began his writing career while serving out a prison term for jewel theft in the early 1940s.