(Photo Credit: Marcia Wilson, taken at the 1st Harlem Book Fair July 1999)

Eleanor Taylor Bland is the author of ten mysteries featuring female African-American homicide detective Marti MacAlister, most recently Windy City Dying.

 

Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors
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by Eleanor Taylor Bland (Editor), Walter Mosley, Hugh Holton, Penny Mickelbury,

ISBN: 0425194027
Format: Hardcover, 368pp
Pub. Date: February 2004
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
 

A dazzling collection of crime and mystery stories, Shades of Black is a landmark achievement. Bringing together today's brightest talent from the field-from Walter Mosley, "one of America's best mystery writers" (New York Times), to the late Hugh Holton, whose "gift for retaining suspense is golden" (Chicago Sun-Times)-it is the first anthology of African-American mystery writers. Shades of Black is not only a tribute to the art of storytelling-it's a fascinating foray into the rich and widely varied African-American experience.

Includes stories by:

Frankie Y. Bailey - Jacqueline Turner Banks - Chris Benson - Eleanor Taylor Bland and Anthony Bland - Patricia E. Canterbury - Christopher Chambers - Tracy Clark - Evelyn Coleman - Grace F. Edwards - Robert Greer - Terris MacMahan Grimes - Gar Anthony Haywood - Hugh Holton - Geri Spencer Hunter - Dicey Scroggins Jackson - Glenville Lovell - Lee E. Meadows - Penny Mickelbury - Walter Mosley - Percy Spurlark Parker - Gary Phillips - Charles Shipps

 

 

Fatal Remains (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #11)
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ISBN: 0312300972
Format: Hardcover, 288pp
Pub. Date: December 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

When Marti MacAlister and her partner Matthew "Vik" Jessenovik respond to a report of skeletal remains found on a wooded piece of land, the pair has no idea it's just the first indication of a convoluted case of murder and conspiracy dating back hundreds of years. The skeleton turns out to be quite a mystery in itself, leading Native American groups and historians specializing in the Underground Railroad to flock to the site.

Unfortunately for all involved, the violence associated with the area is not confined to the distant past, and soon reports of mysterious accidents and suspicious deaths are coming in faster than Marti would like. A small contingent of locals even swears the land is haunted by a ghost intent on exacting a vicious revenge for some unknown grievance. Marti knows there must be a more traditional explanation, and it's her job to find out what it is. Eleanor Taylor Bland is at the top of her form in this taut, well-researched, suspenseful entry in her award-winning Marti MacAlister series.

 

Windy City Dying (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #10)
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ISBN: 0312320485
Format: Paperback, 324pp
Pub. Date: November 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

"Marti MacAlister, Eleanor Taylor Bland's popular African American heroine, is forced to confront some extremely personal demons from long ago - her husband, Johnny MacAlister, is long buried, but now someone from Johnny's past is back, looking for him, and Marti fears she knows who it might be." "In the meantime, her work as a suburban Chicago homicide detective has taken her back in time in another way, to a group of children she once counseled, each now four years older and with four more years' worth of problems. There's LaShawna, now seventeen and with her own four-year-old daughter; Padgett, all grown up at twelve but still living with his alcoholic mother; and then Jose, fifteen, who's in the most trouble of them all. He's been accused of murder, but the Jose whom Marti remembers could not have committed such a terrible crime. Her first step is to find out what could have happened in the past four years to lead Jose to such a desperate act, and she hopes her second step will be to prove his innocence." It won't be easy, though; just what's going on with this tight group of kids, and how does it relate to the increasingly foreboding sense of doom Marti gets about the mystery man who's nosing around the remnants of her distant past? She's not sure, but she knows she must figure it all out, and soon, before another of the children, or even Marti herself, falls into grave danger.

 

Whispers in the Dark (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #9)
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ISBN: 0312307330
Format: Paperback, 256pp
Pub. Date: October 2002
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
 

A fine rain was falling as Detective Marti MacAlister made her way through the tall grass to the wooded area where the arm had been found. It was cool for early September, and the rain, little more than a mist, felt cold. Marti stared at the hand. The fingers were curled in a beckoning gesture.

Eleanor Taylor Bland's popular African-American heroine, homicide detective Marti MacAlister, and her partner are assigned a most unusual case-all that's left of the unfortunate murder victim is an arm. Their investigation leads them into the exclusive and secretive history of the artistic community in Lincoln Prairie, Illinois.

Meanwhile, Marti's troubled best friend Sharon is slowly getting involved with a man who makes Sharon's friends and family uneasy. When he spirits her away to the Bahamas, then lures her daughter down after them, Marti has no choice but to go to the islands on a dramatic rescue mission.

Another captivating tale of danger and obsession from Eleanor Taylor Bland, Whispers in the Dark will keep fans and new readers alike in gripping suspense.

 

Scream in Silence (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #8)
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ISBN: 0312974949
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 320pp
Pub. Date: February 2001
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

There was such a thing as too much luck. It tended to come in bunches - like trouble... In this eighth book in Eleanor Taylor Bland's fast-paced series, Marti and Vik must sort through the few clues the have to go on in this intircate case and find the connections before quiet Lincoln Prairie ends up in ashes.
 

 

Keep Still A Marti Macalister Mystery (#7)
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ISBN: 0312971133
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 288pp
Pub. Date: February 2000
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
 

The blissful aftermath of Marti MacAlister's second wedding doesn't last long when her longtime partner Matthew "Vik" Jessenovik interrupts the honeymoon with some disturbing news. Two murders'one recent and another decades old'shock a walthy Chicago suburb. Now Marti and Vik must get to the heart of two complex cases. And what they uncover will put their unlikely partnership at risk'not to mention their lives...

 

See No Evil (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #6)
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ISBN: 0783801122
Format: Hardcover, 392pp
Pub. Date: December 1998
Publisher: Macmillan Library Reference

In her sixth case, police detective Marti MacAlister, a widowed mother recently engaged to a paramedic, investigates the death of a young Chicago woman found along the rocky shore of Lake Michigan in Lincoln Prairie. The woman's injuries indicate foul play, but Marti and her partner, Vik, have no strong evidence against the prime suspect, the victim's drug-dealing boyfriend. Meanwhile, a homeless man and part-time snitch named Isaac hasn't seen his buddy Dare on the street in a week, and Marti knows the missing man stayed in an abandoned building near the murder scene. What Marti doesn't know is that while she's working hard to stop one killer, another from the past has her family in his sights. Unless Marti can outsmart them both, she will lose everything she has worked so hard to protect

 

Keep Still (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #5)
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ISBN: 0312961723
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 227pp
Pub. Date: December 1997
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

When an old woman dies after falling down her basement stairs, the coroner proves she was pushed, and suspicion centers on her two grown sons. A few days later, another woman is found dead in a motel pool. Although her death doesn't have the marks of a random murder, Marti and her partner, Jessenovik, have little to work with: the woman, a former teacher, left few possessions and no family behind. Through careful digging and help from unexpected sources, Marti and Vik discover a connection between the teacher and an abused young girl who disappeared eight years ago. The girl was never found, and Marti suspects that her troubled family knows more about the disappearance - and both of the recent murders - than they can admit. But as Marti works to coax important clues from people closest to the victims, the secrets she learns may drive a desperate killer to strike again.

 

Done Wrong (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #4)
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ISBN: 0312957947
Format: Mass Market Paperback
Pub. Date: January 1999
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

COPS WERE DYING. A KILLER WAS GOING FREE. A WOMAN WITH A BROKEN HEART WAS OUT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
A mother, a widow, a black woman cop, Marti MacAlister lives and works in a quiet suburb. Part of her died in Chicago when her husband, an undercover cop, was killed by a bullet from his own gun. Now Marti is headed back to the city to find the truth about Johnny MacAlister's death.

Another Chicago undercover cop has died in a drug buy gone wrong, and Johnny's name keeps coming up. Guided by informants, scattered clues, and the hard wisdom of the streets, Marti scours the city's underbelly for the truth she must have: the kind of truth that can give a grieving woman back her life, or take it away all over again.

 

Gone Quiet (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #3)
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ISBN: 0451182677
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 320pp
Pub. Date: April 1995
Publisher: Dutton Signet

A routine investigation of an elderly man's death leads to personal and professional complications for Marti MacAlister, the only black female police detective in Lincoln Prairie, Illinois. When the coroner finds that Henry Hamilton was suffocated in his sleep, Marti and her partner, Jessenovik, know it's likely he was killed by someone he knew. They also know that Hamilton, a deacon of Mount Gethsemane Baptist Church, is the stepfather of Denise Stevens, a juvenile probation officer who has helped them on other cases. Hoping to prove that Denise is not a murder suspect Marti looks into the victim's church-centered community and his family's troubled past. But the closer Marti gets to identifying the killer, the more protective Denise becomes toward her mother and sisters: Gladys, whose lifelong struggle for respect may have taken a dangerous turn; Belle, a nightclub singer whose flamboyant style has a desperate edge; and Terri, her father's favorite, who feels trapped in her marriage to an older man. As the police learn more about who Hamilton really was, Denise withdraws further from the people who want to help her until Marti is forced to assume that she and her sisters are keeping a terrible secret.

 

Slow Burn (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #2)
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ISBN: 0312092377
Format: Hardcover, 224pp
Pub. Date: July 1993
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Edition Description: 1st ed

When a young woman and a little girl die in a fire at a women's clinic, Marti MacAlister must investigate whether they were accidentally caught in an insurance-related arson . . . or the victims of murder by a local right-to-life group. Martin's.

 

Dead Time (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series #1)
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ISBN: 0312977190
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 224pp
Pub. Date: May 2001
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Eleanor Taylor Bland's legion of fans, as well as new readers, will now be able to read the first highly acclaimed novel that launched one of the first-and now one of the best-mystery series written by an African-American writer about an African-American female cop. DEAD TIME will take you on an exhilarating ride through the streets of Chicago with one of the most unforgettable characters in mystery fiction today...
Black, widowed, and mother of two, police detective Marti MacAlister has relocated from Chicago to Lincoln Prairie, Illinois, only to be confronted with small-town attitudes and a partner who's not sure women belong in homicide. But Matthew "Vik" Jessenovik's old-fashioned thinking is far less compelling a problem than a brutal murder at the Cramer Hotel, home to the elderly, poor, and mentally ill. And when Marti and Vik discover that two abandoned children might have seen the killer leaving the crime scene, the case becomes even more urgent as Marti must step up her efforts and use all of her street smarts to find a killer who is desperate to eliminate any possible witnesses to his crime-even if it's two innocent homeless kids...
 

 

Related Links

Web home of Eleanor Taylor Bland
http://home.earthlink.net/~etbland/

 

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http://www.sisterspace.com/blandbooks.htm