African American Crime Fiction

Emery Thompson hates Calvin Chamberlain. From the way he acts like he’s better than everyone to the way he moves through the world thinking his podcast is the cream of the crop, every little thing about the man gets to him. Even that dashing, oh-so-confident smile. He’d rather be caught dead than be around the man any longer than necessary—or admit that last part out loud.

On October 20, 1973, in San Francisco, a White couple strolling down Telegraph Hill was set upon and butchered by four young Black men. Thus began a reign of terror that lasted six months and left 15 Whites dead and the entire city in a state of panic. The perpetrators wanted nothing less than a race war.

“Narrator Adam Lazarre-White masterfully voices a wide range of characters. Listeners will be captivated by the layered storytelling, morally complex characters, and the powerful interpretation of a narrative steeped in pain, violence, and family loyalty.”—AudioFile Award-winning, New York...

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young Black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick “Engrossing . . . Wilkerson masterfully weaves...

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

From Richard Wright comes a compelling story of one man's attempt to escape his past and start anew in Harlem. Cross Damon is a man at odds with society and with himself—a man of superior intellect who hungers for peace but who brings terror and destruction wherever he goes. The Outsider is an important work of fiction that depicts American racism and its devastating consequences in raw and unflinching terms. Brilliantly imagined and frighteningly prescient, it is an epic exploration of the tragic roots of criminal behavior.

Pre-order DEATH AT DAFFODIL INN, book two in the Cinnamon Falls series, coming Spring 2026! * Welcome to Cinnamon Falls! The cosy murder mystery series with a romantic twist, perfect for fans of Gilmore Girls, Pretty Little Liars, the Dream Harbor series and cinnamon buns.* After a humiliating...

Trick Baby tells the story of White Folks, a blue-eyed, light-haired con artist whose pale skin allows him to pass in the streets as a white man. Folks is tormented early in life, rejected by other children and branded a "trick baby," a child conceived between a hooker and her trick. Refusing to abandon his life in the ghetto and a chance at revenge, Folks is taken under the wing of an older mentor, Blue. What happens next is unbelievable.

The year is 1906, and America is segregated. Hatred and discrimination plague the streets, the classroom, and the courts. But in WashingtonD.C., Ben Corbett, a smart and courageous lawyer, makes it his mission to confront injustice at every turn. He represents those who nobody else dares defend...

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and Caesar King feels weighted to the ground. The Five Families are in complete disarray, and Caesar realizes too late that stepping down was the wrong thing to do. It’s up to him to make the puzzle whole again. But when another war comes to their doorsteps and a past mistake comes back for blood, death rips through the boroughs like a tornado. In the end, there might not be any pieces left to put back together.

As a low-level enforcer in Los Angeles, Ken Swift knows danger, but nowhere does he feel it more than in his tangled romances. Divorced from one woman, in love with another, and wrestling with a strong desire to get to know a third, his life is far from perfect, and it becomes all the more complicated when his troubled daughter resurfaces on the same day as a major job.

After finding out that Glockman has betrayed her in the worst way, Lyle is furious and ready to handle him fatally. Unfortunately for her, Glockman feels he has worked too hard to obtain her and refuses to let them end. He and Lyle must work together to deal with a common enemy, and they also have to face the repercussions of their rekindling, especially once a traitor in their circle reveals their murderous secret. Will they be able to overcome the odds stacked against them? Or will the guilt of disloyalty, being immoral, and envious outsiders be the death of their relationship?

In this "captivating" crime novel (People), Texas Ranger Darren Mathews is on the hunt for a missing child -- but it's the boy's family of white supremacists who are his real target. 9-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake...

They say the love of money is the root of all evil, but for Ken Swift, it's the love of a woman. Ken is 21, hurting people for cash to try to pay his way through college, when he lays eyes on Jimi Lee, the woman who will change the course of his entire life. What's meant to be a one-night stand with the Harvard-bound beauty turns into an explosion of sexual chemistry that neither can quit. And when Jimi Lee becomes pregnant, their two very different worlds collide in ways they never could have anticipated.

The suspect is your patient, Dr. Cross. An anonymous caller has promised to set off deadly bombs in Washington, DC. A cruel hoax or the real deal? By the time Alex Cross and his wife, Bree Stone, uncover the chilling truth, it may already be too late.... BookShots LIGHTNING-FAST STORIES BY JAMES...

When young queer dancer Wilbess “Bessy” Mulenga is arrested by corrupt police, fresh-from-the-village rookie lawyer Grace Zulu takes up his cause in her first pro bono case. Presented with a freshly beaten client, Grace protests to the police and gets barred from accessing Bessy, who then disappears from the system—and the world—without a trace. As she fights for justice for Bessy, Grace must navigate a dangerous world of corrupt politicians, traditional beliefs, and deep-seated homophobia.

As a hit man from the time he was very young, money, women, and danger have always ruled Gideon's life; but for the first time, the job is taking its toll. Neither Gideon nor the city of Buenos Aires has recovered from the mayhem caused during Gideon's last job. But before the dust has settled and the bodies have been buried, Gideon calls in backup - including the lovely Hawks, with whom Gideon has heated memories - to launch his biggest act of revenge yet...one he believes will destroy his adversary, Midnight, once and for all.

In 1992, Los Angeles burned. In the aftermath of the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots, a ground-breaking ceremony at the infamous intersection of Florence and Normandie unearths the body of a Korean liquor store owner. Black private eye Ivan Monk searches for the killer—many suspect the motives for the murder were racial. But then another body turns up, and while the FBI and the Rolling Daltons, the largest gang in the city, dog Monk’s trail, Monk questions who the real perpetrators are and whether he can prevent more from dying, including himself, before he uncovers the truth.