NOT YOUR USUAL SUSPECTS

A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links.

We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too!

NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online.


Julie Moffet . Cathy Perkins . Jean Harrington . Daryl Anderson . Nico Rosso . Maureen A Miller . Sandy Parks . Lisa Q Mathews . Sharon Calvin . Lynne Connolly . Janis Patterson . Vanessa Keir . Tonya Kappes . Julie Rowe . Joni M Fisher . Leslie Langtry

Friday, February 11, 2011

Gone But Not Forgotten: My Favorite African-American Mystery Series


In honor of Black History Month, I’d like to share my favorite African-American mystery writers and their series. Sadly, these series have either been dropped, run their course, or are on hiatus. Many are no longer in print. But you can always check your local public library and with many author’s backlists being made available digitally, it’s still possible to purchase some of them. So in no particular order, here they are!

Barbara Neely’s Blanche White Series-featured Blanche White, a plus sized domestic and amateur sleuth whose razor sharp wit and keen insight into racial and social dynamics helps her to solve crimes.

Eleanor Taylor Bland’s Marti MacAlister Series-Set in fictional Lincoln Prairie, Illinois, this series features widowed homicide detective Marti MacAlister as she solves crimes and juggles motherhood.

Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins Series-If it’s possible to be in love with a fictional character, then I’m head over heels for PI Easy Rawlins. This excellent long running series came to its conclusion in 2007, with Blonde Faith. Easy, you are missed!

Valerie Wilson Wesley’s Tamara Hayle Series-Newark PI, and single mom, Tamara Hayle has starred in eight novels, the most recent, Of Blood and Sorrow, was released in 2008. I hope there are more forthcoming.

Kyra Davis’s Sophie Katz’s Series-Sex in the City meets Miss Marple featuring mystery writer and amateur sleuth Sophie Katz and her wacky gang of friends. Not sure of the status of this series but have a good feeling we haven’t seen the last of Sophie and Co.







If you haven't already, I hope you'll check out these excellent series. I have even higher hopes that any author  whose series has been dropped will resurrect it. With the growth of digital and self-publishing, no author should have to abandon a series when a publisher makes a decision not continue it. 

Enjoy!

8 comments:

Toni Anderson said...

They look awesome. Thanks for those, Angela.

Wynter said...

I'd never heard of these series, but they all sound interesting. Thanks for the recommendations.

Angela Henry said...

You're welcome, Toni. Hope you get a chance to check some of them out ; ).

Wynter, it's no surprise you haven't heard of these series. AA mysteries can't be found in the mystery section of most bookstores. They're shelved in the AA section, which annoys me to no end!

Elise Warner said...

Familiar with Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins. Have to catch up with the others.

Maureen A. Miller said...

I think I would be a fan of Blanche White. She sounds like my type of character.

Marcelle Dubé said...

Thanks for the suggestions, Angela. Another good series is the Smokey Dalton series, by Kris Nelscott. It starts out in 1968 and Smokey is a Memphis P.I. Great stuff.

Julie Moffett said...

Now my TBR pile is even bigger!! Thanks for the great suggestions!

Unknown said...

I've never heard of these but I'm going to check them out. And why, oh why, can't they be shelved in the mystery section? Grrr.

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