Gary Phillips (born August 24, 1955) is an American writer, editor, and community activist whose 1994 novel Violent Spring is considered a classic work of crime fiction and one of the essential crime novels about Los Angeles. His more than two dozen books range from hard-boiled mysteries such as the Ivan Monk series to graphic novels including Angeltown and anthologies like The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir. Phillips has also served as a story editor and writer on the television show Snowfall.

Phillips was born on August 24, 1955, in Los Angeles to Dikes Phillips, a mechanic, and Leonelle Hutton Phillips, a librarian. His family was among many African Americans who left the Southern United States for Los Angeles in the 1940s and '50s. Phillips's mother developed multiple sclerosis after he was born, resulting in his being raised primarily by his father. The stories Phillips's father told him about being on the road during the Great Depression later influenced his decision to become a writer.

Phillips attended San Francisco State University for a year and received a B. A. in graphic design from California State University, Los Angeles, in 1978. He has worked as a printer and as a "political campaign director, union organizer, and activist against police brutality and South African apartheid". In particular, Phillips worked for the Coalition Against Police Abuse because of the brutality of the 77th division of the Los Angeles Police Department that patrolled the area where he grew up. He also was one of the founding directors of the MultiCultural Collaborative, a community-based groups aiming to reduce racial tensions following the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

In 1989 after being fired from his job with a union, Phillips enrolled in a creative writing class taught by Robert Crais. During the class Phillips wrote a mystery story about an African American private investigator named Ivan Monk, a character he returned to in his first novel.

Phillips is known for writing comic books, detective noir, and pulp fiction, all works that also influenced him while growing up in South Los Angeles. In particular, his crime fiction has been praised as being a "terrific" example of the hard-boiled mystery genre and being "firmed rooted" in that tradition. Phillips himself describes his writing style as "hard-boiled tales with dashes of Chester Himes and Ashley Montague." Among Phillip's other self-admitted influences are Rod Serling, Jack Kirby, Jim Steranko, and Richard Pryor.

Phillips's first novel Violent Spring featured the character Ivan Monk, who he originally wrote about in Robert Crais's creative writing class. In the novel, Monk investigates the murder of a Korean shop owner in the aftermath of the 1992 riots. Violent Spring was released in 1994 by the small publishing company West Coast Crime and later optioned by HBO. The novel is now considered a "crime classic" and has been called one of the essential crime novels of Los Angeles by CrimeReads.

In addition to Violent Spring, Phillips has written three other novels in the acclaimed series featuring Ivan Monk along with the short story collection Monkology: 13 Stories From the World of Private Eye Ivan Monk, released in 2004 by Macmillan Publishers.

Another series of mysteries by Phillips focuses on an African American woman named Martha Chainey, who is a former showgirl. The series deals with "her exploits with the Vegas mob as a crime solver." Phillips has so far written two novels about Chainey.