Neely was really a pioneer for female African-American mystery writers, and she has used Blanche's casework to send powerful, prescient, political and social messages.

Why does the Pacific Northwest seem to produce so many female mystery authors? It’s a mystery to Pepper Parker, who works at Vancouver’s last independent bookstore, Vintage Books. Parker just ...

Award-winning mystery writer Barbara Neely, who created what’s believed to be the first black female detective series in mainstream American publishing, has died following a brief illness ...

Cloak, dagger, carpool lane and diaper bag: There's a suspicious number of female mystery writers in the Bay Area By Adair Lara , Chronicle Staff Writer Jan 8, 2004 jackson illustration ...

On the page, meanwhile, helped along by a new fashion for teen-sleuth stories, the girl detective gradually emerged to explore a new kind of American female identity. The first Nancy Drew cover ...

In the mystery novels of Los Angeles author Paula L. Woods, black police Det. Charlotte Justice is haunted by history. She can’t drive through Hancock Park without recalling that when Nat King ...

Love 'Gone Girl'? We talked to Sarah Weinman, editor of the new anthology 'Women Crime Writers' about the badass pioneering female crime writers of the '40s and '50s.

More than 20 years later, mystery fans can walk into any bookstore and see female authors and characters dominating the shelves. Throughout a dozen books, Warshawski has become a character that ...

To Cha’s great credit, along with her guest editor, novelist Alafair Burke, this year’s edition – renamed "Best American Mystery and Suspense" (Mariner Books, 300 pp., ★★★½ out of ...

Barbara Neely, an unheralded social activist who in her 50s became an award-winning writer of mystery novels centered on a savvy black maid who doubles as an amateur detective, died on March 2 in ...

Lillie’s meticulous research and skillful approach in “Blood Sisters” further explores this, joining other Native American mystery writers such as Ramona Emerson (“Shutter”), David Heska ...