As A Killing Rain starts, our heroine—homicide detective Raven Burns—thinks she’s finally put at least some of her demons to rest. Her father was notorious serial killer Floyd Burns, who used his only daughter as bait in his sick schemes. When Raven grew up, she was determined to put Floyd behind her by enrolling in…
There have been black writers writing black detectives since the beginning of the 20th century. There were black Holmes’ and black Marlowes and black Marples, policemen, amateur sleuths, and private eyes, coexisting with their “mainstream” counterparts almost since the beginning of modern crime fiction, but they were ignored, unseen, unpublished. These black writers, these pioneers,…
Land of Shadows by Rachel Howzell Hall is a procedural mystery featuring homicide detective Elouise “Lou” Norton as she delves deep into a teenage murder on the outskirts of L.A. (available June 10, 2014). Along the ever-changing border of gentrifying Los Angeles, seventeen-year-old Monique Darson is found dead at a condominium construction site, hanging in…
Barbara Hambly’s series of historical mysteries set in 1830s New Orleans are exceptional for their deep sense of setting, their intriguing continuing characters, their direct confrontations with racism, and just plain page-turning storytelling. But besides being terrific mysteries, there are great secondary characters, and a satisfying ongoing romance between detective Benjamin January and scholar Rose…
