The Chair on 79th

About this book:

On 79th Street, Raymond Vance's barbershop is more than a place to get a fade—it's the last neutral ground between Cottage Grove and Stony Island. Fifty-four years old, razor-sharp, and armed with a 1961 Belmont chair and a German straight blade, Ray enforces a simple code: no colors, no politics, no credit, and absolutely no trouble in his chairs. But when Calvin—a kid Ray watched grow up—walks in wearing a snub-nosed .38 and carrying a dead man's secrets, the shop's fragile peace shatters. Two hitmen from Gary are already parked across the street, and they're not there for a trim.

What follows is a masterclass in tension, as Ray navigates the thin line between protecting his neighborhood and protecting himself. Every chapter tightens the noose: a burner phone left in a drawer, a detective with his own agenda, a stash house on Stony Island, and a lockdown that turns the shop into a pressure cooker. The prose cuts clean as a straight razor—atmospheric, authentic, and utterly unflinching about the cost of loyalty on Chicago's South Side.

*The Chair on 79th* isn't just a crime novel. It's a portrait of a vanishing institution and the man who holds it together, one precise stroke at a time. For readers of George Pelecanos, Attica Locke, and anyone who knows that the most dangerous stories happen in the places everyone trusts.