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Mysteries by Black Women to Add to Your Reading List
Kellye Garrett'sfirst novel, Hollywood Homicide, was released in August 2017 and won the Agatha, Anthony, Lefty, and Independent Publisher “IPPY� awards for best first novel. Hollywood Ending, the second book in her Detective by Day mystery series, was chosen as a best mystery of 2018 by Suspense Magazine, Book Riot, and CrimeReads. In addition to being featured on the TODAY show’s Best Summer Reads of 2019, it was nominated for an Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original and a Lefty Award for Best Humorous Novel. She lost both awards, but to really cool people, so it was OK, she swears!
In addition to writing, Garrett currently serves on the national board of directors of and is a cofounder of alongside Walter Mosley and Gigi Pandian. Her most recent project is an #ownvoices domestic suspense novel about a woman looking into the overdose death of a onetime reality star found within blocks of her house—her own estranged younger sister.
In addition to writing, Garrett currently serves on the national board of directors of and is a cofounder of alongside Walter Mosley and Gigi Pandian. Her most recent project is an #ownvoices domestic suspense novel about a woman looking into the overdose death of a onetime reality star found within blocks of her house—her own estranged younger sister.
Happy Black History Month!
February is a great time to expand your reading lists to include more marginalized voices. Of course, you’d be doing yourself a huge disservice if you only picked up mysteries by Black authors once a year, especially with so many talented authors being published right now: names like Attica Locke, S.A. Cosby, Lauren Wilkinson, Gary Phillips, Alyssa Cole, Nikki Dolson, John Vercher, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Kwei Quartey, Carolyn Wilkins, Elizabeth Wilkerson, Faye Snowden, Femi Kayode, Rachel Edwards, Stacey Abrams,Christopher Chambers, and others.
We’re definitely in a golden era when it comes to #ownvoices crime fiction, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Gar Anthony Haywood’s Aaron Gunner and Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins ushered in a new wave of Black American mysteries in the late �80s and early �90s.
And unlike 30 years ago, when the focus was more hard-boiled private detectives and cops, today’s books encapsulate a variety of genres to fit whatever your tastes may be, whether it’s funny Janet Evanovich–esque beach reads like my own Detective by Day series or twisty, domestic suspense like Cate Holahan’s upcoming Her Three Lives.
For this Black History Month, I decided to focus on the first book in a series, specifically ones written by Black American women over the past 30 years. This way, your TBR list will be covered all year long.
I remember the excitement I felt as a Black woman and as a mystery lover when I first discovered each and every one of these series. Hopefully, you’ll find your own joy while reading them.
Neely once accurately described herself as Ginger Rogers to Walter Mosley’s Fred Astaire. Her debut broke barriers as the first Black woman sleuth in almost a century. The story about a heavy-set, deeper-complexioned woman who stumbles across a murder while working as a domestic worker for rich white folks won the Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity awards. She passed away in 2020, right before receiving the Mystery Writers of America coveted Grand Master Award.
(Four books in the series.)
(Four books in the series.)
Taylor Bland was right behind Neely when it came to breaking the glass ceiling. The first in her series introduced us to a Black woman police detective who moves from Chicago to small-town Illinois and looks into a murder witnessed by two homeless children. After she died in 2010, created the Eleanor Taylor Bland grant for up-and-coming mystery writers of color in her honor.
(Fourteen books in the series.)
(Fourteen books in the series.)
While Neely tackled the amateur detective and Taylor Bland focused on a cop, Wilson Wesley’s New Jersey-set debut brought much-needed color to the woman private detective genre that first exploded in the �80s. The first has Tamara racing to uncover who is killing her ex-husband’s sons before her own boy is next.
(Eight books in the series.)
(Eight books in the series.)
Like Neely, Edwards passed in 2020, and also like Neely, she left quite the legacy. Her Mali Anderson series is about a former cop in Harlem who, in the first book, looks into the death of her friend when she finds his body after stopping a child abduction.
(Four books in the series.)
(Four books in the series.)
Thomas-Graham bucked stereotypes with her Harvard economics professor who always stumbles upon a murder while at Ivy League colleges. Her debut focuses on the death of the Black woman who is Dean of Students at Harvard’s Law School.
(Three books in the series.)
(Three books in the series.)
Davis� series about a Black Jewish bestselling mystery novelist showed that Black women can be the star of fun and lighter amateur detective novels. The first has Sophie looking into a copycat killer when a friend’s murder is a bit too similar to the death scene in one of his films.
(Seven books in the series.)
(Seven books in the series.)
There’s a lot of talk about the successor to Walter Mosley, and in my opinion, Howzell Hall is it. The first in this cop series focuses on a Black woman who must discover what happened to a dead teen found in the closet of an unfinished condo in a gentrified section of Los Angeles.
(Four books in the series.)
(Four books in the series.)
Like Davis, Gordon defies expectations with both her setting and her genre in an #ownvoices mystery novel. A Black American classical musician moves to Ireland on a whim and finds herself helping the ghost of the onetime owner of the cottage she’s staying at clear his name in his wife’s death.
(Five books in the series.)
(Five books in the series.)
Intersectionality is something that’s not addressed enough in crime fiction, which is why Head’s Detroit-set series about a Black lesbian private eye is so needed. The first in the series deals with a missing-person case that leads Charlie to Birmingham, Alabama, and murder.
(Six books in the series.)
(Six books in the series.)
Pitts� self-pubbed series focuses on a down-on-his-luck unemployed private detective renting a room in a brothel. When a fire at the brothel kills a woman, Rook joins a local detective agency while trying to uncover what happened.
(Five books in the series.)
(Five books in the series.)
Burns� series about a police detective on leave from the force mixes genres with the fun characters (and recipes!) of a cozy and the more serious investigative focus often found in a noir. In the first books in the series, RJ looks into a house fire that killed a controversial choir director.
(Three books in the series.)
(Three books in the series.)
Collette is a hybrid author whose latest cozy series introduces a woman who just wants her family’s ice cream shop to succeed. Of course, she gets more than she bargained for when she finds a dead body and her dad is the police’s chief suspect.
(Two books in the series.)
(Two books in the series.)
Bonus: Here are three new series by Black American women out in 2021
Richards� debut is a romantic suspense novel that introduces us to security expert Ryan West, who must keep a hotel CEO safe from the person desperate to find out more about her presumed dead brother.
(Available now.)
(Available now.)
Matthews� second cozy series focuses on a Georgia librarian who uses her love of research and crime novels to clear her best friend when a dead body is found in a bookstore.
(Available in March.)
(Available in March.)
The first in Afia’s debut historical series focuses on a jaded flapper in 1926 Harlem who reluctantly investigates the murders of young Black women in the city to avoid jail time.
(Available in June.)
(Available in June.)
Fellow fans of mystery, what are some of your top reads of 2020? Share your picks with us in the comments.
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As a longtime mystery reader, I am delighted to see this list! I especially appreciate the inclusion of some authors I love whose works are out of print or harder to find. I will second the recommendation of Barbara Neely. Blanche on the Lam won a stack of awards when it was published back in 1992, and I hope that this helps point people back to Neely's work! Barbara Neely was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in December 2019. I am so glad that they honored her before she passed away (we lost her in 2020).
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The FountainPenDiva, Old school geek chick and lover of teddy bears
(last edited Apr 12, 2021 06:09PM)
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Automatically assuming a list of books written by Black mystery authors during Black History Month are "not any good" or "not quality" says a lot more about people's unconscious biases, and it isn't good.It's pretty telling how triggered some people become whenever Black people are spotlighted in any way that isn't stereotypically accepted. Clutch the pearls - Black people writing and reading mystery books, oh my!
I'm glad this list was compiled. I love mysteries and it's nice to see Black authors in this genre writing the gamut from hardboiled to cozy and everything in between. As someone who has more books than clothes, this list is just another excuse to fill up my bookshelves - both physical and electronic. I'm glad someone mentioned Frankie Y. Bailey's mysteries. I was fortunate enough to have met her at a book festival and have her sign my copy of Death's Favored Child.
Thank you for this list! I've read the "Blanche White" series by Barbara Neely, and the "Ivy League murders" series by Pamela Thomas-Graham but this mystery author list is going to have me spending all my book budget in one place. I enjoy mysteries by many different authors from different cultures, but having a list of authors that are Black women (like me) is so needed in my world. I'm a fan of Walter Mosely, M.C Beaton, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Gary Hardwick, Stephen L. Carter, Colin Dexter and quite a few others. I believe, that authors write as much from their own experiences as from the fictional worlds of their characters. Everyone can use this list to add new authors to their personal library.
I loved BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD by Attica Locke and I have HEAVEN, MY HOME on my list as well.