Shaft (novel)

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Shaft is a 1970 detective novel by Ernest Tidyman. It is the first book in the John Shaft series and introduces John Shaft, a private investigator in New York City. The novel later inspired the 1971 film Shaft and its sequels.

Tidyman, who had been a journalist, wanted to blend gritty realism with the mystery genre. Editor Alan Rinzler, who had helped bring Manchild in the Promised Land to readers, encouraged this approach. With the help of literary agent Ronald Hobbs, Tidyman began writing Shaft in late 1968, finished in 1969, and started shopping the film rights even before publication.

The hardback edition was published in April 1970 by Macmillan in the United States. The book was followed by Shaft Among the Jews.