Spooks, Spies and Private Eyes

This illuminating anthology showcases a century of writing that extends from Pauline E. Hopkins, whose Poe-inspired locked-room mystery, ``Talma Gordon,'' appeared in Colored American Magazine in 1900, to Walter Mosley, who is currently president of the Mystery Writers of America. In between, writers like Chester Himes explored the black American experience through crime and mystery fiction. In 1932, physician and Harlem Renaissance luminary Rudolph Fisher published The Conjure-Man Dies (excerpted here), which, according to Woods, ``introduced the first black detective duo.'' Ever since, African American characters have increasingly been cast as police officers and private investigators. Gar Anthony Haywood's PI, Aaron Gunner, who works out of a central L.A. barbershop, appears in the short story ``And Pray Nobody sees You.'' Penny Micklebury (whose Night Songs is excerpted here) writes about Gianna Maglione, a Washington, D.C., police officer who heads a Hate Crimes Unit. Woods (I Hear a Symphony) provides a concise history of black crime fiction, places it in a chronology of all detective fiction and offers thumbnail author biographies. (Nov.)