cover image THE BLACK SLEUTH

THE BLACK SLEUTH

John Edward Bruce, ; Edited by John Cullen Gruesser. . Northeastern Univ., $18.95 (125pp) ISBN 978-1-55553-511-7

This serial, rescued from the pages of McGirt's Magazine circa 1907 to 1909, is of significant historical and academic interest, but proves less arresting as a work of fiction, not least because it's unfinished. In his day, Bruce (1856–1924) was a major figure in black politics in America, more militant than Booker T. Washington (whose accommodationist philosophy for the Tuskegee Institute comes up for satire here), but his name has faded from general recognition. Born a slave, he rose to become the preeminent black journalist of his generation, as well as a fiery orator (many of his articles and speeches were gathered in 1971 in The Selected Writings of John Edward Bruce). He follows close on the heels of Pauline Hopkins, creator of the earliest known black detective from an African-American writer in her 1901–1902 serial, Hagar's Daughter, which features the maid Venus Johnson as sleuth. Bruce's investigator, Sadipe Okukenu, from West Africa, works for the International Detective Agency, and the opening lines are still powerful: "Do you mean to tell me that that nigger is a detective, and that you are going to put him on this case, Mr. Hunter?" But the mystery of a stolen (or about to be stolen, it is unclear) diamond cuts off midstory as McGirt's suspended publication. Gruesser's scholarly introduction covers technical problems with the text, making it clear that Bruce is a much more interesting figure than simply a writer who saw that a black man, too, could solve crimes. (June 24)

Forecast:A natural for Black Studies courses on campus, this incomplete novel is likely to be a tough sell to nonacademic fans of African-American crime fiction.