Spooks, Spies, and Private Eyes

This anthology, just out in paperback, is the noir side of the famed Harlem Renaissance, a compendium of mostly excellent, almost entirely unheralded mysteries by black writers. Long before Chester Himes and Walter Mosley, such writers as John A. Williams and Eleanor Taylor Bland were using the mystery genre to make serious statements. Editor Paula Woods has done a fine job of tracking down lost or out-of-print gems.