The protagonists of the novel, Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed, are a pair of black detectives who patrol the dangerous slums of Harlem.

The book was originally published in French under the title Il pleut des coups durs (English: It's Raining Hard).

Detectives Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson arrive to find Galen shot to death in the street, and they arrest Pickens.

[2] The Real Cool Killers has been subject of literary criticism, most notably for its depiction of African-American characters Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed Johnson.

[5] In "Born in a Mighty Bad Land" Jerry H Bryant wrote "There is ... a kind of clinical as well as cultural element in Himes's treatment of the violent man in the Harlem of the fifties and sixties".