Black Noir: Mystery, Crime, and Suspense Stories by African-American Writers »

Otto Penzler is the proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. He was publisher of The Armchair Detective, the founder of the Mysterious Press and the Armchair Detective Library, and created the publishing firm Otto Penzler Books. He is a recipient of an Edgar Award for The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection and the Ellery Queen Award by the Mystery Writers of America for his many contributions to the field. He is the editor of The Vampire Archives and The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, which was a New York Times bestseller.

The best mystery and crime fiction ever produced by African-American writers.

Publishers Weekly

As mystery fiction expert Penzler notes in his concise overview of African-American crime writing at the start of this welcome anthology, despite the central element linking the 15 short stories, they "transcend race and genre to fulfill their primary purpose-to inform and entertain." Contributors include expected names like Walter Mosley and Chester Himes, not to mention Robert Greer, Gary Phillips and Eleanor Taylor Bland, as well as writers rescued from obscurity by their inclusion in this mostly reprint volume. Edward P. Jones's "Old Boys, Old Girls" is the standout, a powerful if grim psychological portrait of a man after his imprisonment for murder. Of historical interest are Hughes Allison's "Corollary" (1948), the first story by an African-American to appear in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Pauline E. Hopkins's "Talma Gordon" (1900), the first impossible crime tale published by an African-American. (May)

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