African American Crime

In February 1971, racial tension surrounding school desegregation in Wilmington, North Carolina, culminated in four days of violence and skirmishes between white vigilantes and black residents. The turmoil resulted in two deaths, six injuries, more than $500,000 in damage, and the firebombing of a white-owned store before the National Guard restored uneasy peace. Despite glaring irregularities in the subsequent trial, 10 young persons were convicted of arson and conspiracy and then sentenced to a total of 282 years in prison.

On June 17, 2015, 12 members of the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina welcomed a young white man to their evening Bible study. He arrived with a pistol, 88 bullets, and hopes of starting a race war. Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine innocents during their closing prayer horrified the nation. In Grace Will Lead Us Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes provides a definitive account of the tragedy’s aftermath.

At the age of nine, Issac J. Bailey saw his hero, his eldest brother, taken away in handcuffs, not to return from prison for thirty-two years. Bailey tells the story of their relationship and of his experience living in a family suffering guilt and shame. Drawing on sociological research as well as his expertise as a journalist, he seeks to answer the crucial question of why Moochie and many other young black men - including half of the ten boys in his own family - end up in the criminal justice system. What role did poverty, race, and faith play? What effect did living in the South, in the Bible Belt, have?

A former journalist with a knack for unraveling dirty secrets, Khloe Mercer figures if she's going to risk her life, she might as well make big money as a private investigator. But this reckless newbie needs a major case to make her name - and really show she can handle Norfolk, Virginia's toughest streets. When a narcotics detective's widow needs someone to investigate her disgraced husband's so-called suicide, Khloe jumps at the lucrative fee - and the clues that the Norfolk Police Department is rotten from top to bottom.

On the morning of July 16, 1964, a white police officer in New York City shot and killed a black teenager, James Powell. Two nights later, a peaceful demonstration in Harlem degenerated into violent protests. During the next week, thousands of rioters looted stores from Brooklyn to Rochester and pelted police with bottles and rocks. Michael W. Flamm draws on personal interviews and delves into the archives to move briskly from the streets of New York, where black activists like Bayard Rustin tried in vain to restore peace, to the corridors of the White House.

Korey Taylor, a.k.a. "Killa Korey" and his ace, Hammer, were sentenced to serve two decades in federal prison, but after an unexpected change in the crack cocaine sentencing laws, Korey is released. Now he's on his way home to Charlotte, North Carolina. Like Hammer, Korey is a thug with a violent nature, nothing to joke around with in the cold streets. However, while serving his time, Korey took classes that he hoped would help him become someone other than a drug dealer. Armed with a new way of thinking and a deep desire to reconnect with his teenage daughter, Korey wants to wave goodbye to the game.

In April 2014, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter died after a long battle with cancer. David McCallum was exonerated and freed two months later, after serving 29 years in prison. This is the story of how Carter and his friend and coauthor Ken Klonsky worked for 10 years to help free the wrongfully convicted McCallum, along with a group of committed friends and professionals.

Nothing casts a more sinister shadow over our nation's history than the gruesome lynchings that happened between 1882 and 1937, claiming 4,680 victims. Often, in a show of racist violence, the lynchers tortured their victims before murdering them. Most killers were never brought to justice; some were instead celebrated as heroes, their victims' bodies displayed or even cut up and distributed as trophies.

Take a drive through the Mississippi Delta today and you'll find a landscape dotted with memorials to major figures and events from the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most chilling are those devoted to the murder of Emmett Till, a tragedy of hate and injustice that became a beacon in the fight for racial equality. In Remembering Emmett Till, Dave Tell gives us five accounts of the commemoration of this infamous crime.

Outsiders call Manuel a villain. After spending his youth entangled in inner-city gang warfare, he’s lied, robbed, and murdered his way to the top. His path was set long ago, when two killers massacred his family in front of him. While Manuel was able to take down one of the murderers, his bloodlust has grown for the killer who got away. When he gets the chance to complete his vengeance, the city cowers beneath his thirst for retribution....

He’s the son of a kingpin. She’s the assassin who wants to kill his father. Falling in love was never part of the plan. Leah’s world shattered the day her sister was taken. Years later, she’s built herself into a weapon—sharp, relentless, untraceable. Her only mission? Find the man responsible and destroy everything he’s built. But when her path crosses with Jackson Davis—the mysterious, too-charming neighbor with secrets of his own—everything changes. He’s sexy, guarded, and hiding something dark. And Leah can’t afford distractions. Especially not the kind that leave ...

Security firm CEO David Price is living the rewards of hard work and determination. Single, self-employed, and satisfied with his life, he has it all. Things couldn’t be better. That is, until he meets sexy vixen Sugar Greer - a married woman with a dark history that she must hide, and who he vows to protect. When it’s all over, David and his client are left with blood on their hands. Caught in a web of abuse, theft, and murder, David must get back on the streets to clear his name. It’s a journey that will lead him to One Dead Preacher!

What happened in Kirven, Texas, in May 1922, has been forgotten by the outside world. It was a coworker's whispered words, "Kirven is where they burned the [Negroes]", that set Monte Akers to work at discovering the true story behind a young white woman's brutal murder and the burning alive of three black men who were almost certainly innocent of it. This was followed by a month-long reign of terror as white men killed blacks while local authorities concealed the real identity of the white probable murderers and allowed them to go free.

Essence best-selling authors Kiki Swinson and Noire have attracted huge audiences for their sexy, anything-goes fiction. Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless features a novella from each author. Swinson’s electric “Shamelessly Rich” showcases a spoiled bad girl facing a life-changing choice. And in Noire’s “Puttin’ Shame in the Game,” three gorgeous ladies set their sights on a wealthy cop.

An extraordinary fiction debut: a large, stirring novel of suspense that is, at the same time, a work of brilliantly astute social observation. Publishers Weekly predicts this "will be the talk of the political in-crowd this summer," and Booklist's starred review calls it "a roman à clef with fascinating insights into the behind-the-scenes machinations of racial and power politics." Don't miss this one!

A major literary figure tells “a searching tale of loss, recovery, and déja vu that is part memoir and what-if speculation, part polemic and exposé” (The Washington Post) about two generations of one family - civil rights martyr Emmett Till and his father, Louis - shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Rookie FBI Special Agent Elias Tucker is the son of Liberian immigrants and he's living his American Dream. He graduated from Brown and turned his attention to the law. His first assignment with the Bureau is the Phoenix satellite office in Cochise County, Arizona, just a short drive from the Mexican border. His work involves the cross-border drug trade, missing persons, and tracking foreign nationals who have entered the country illegally. He's a cultural fish out of water. Adjusting to his new life will take time, but time isn't something he has. A string of mysterious disappearances ...

On an icy day in February, African American grandmother Vera Moon arrives home to find her grown son Charlie brutally murdered. She vows to find the killer who has managed to elude the police. Not knowing where to begin, Vera is involved in a suspicious hit-and-run car accident, witnessed by a young Irish American woman, Dani, on the run from the train-wreck of her own life.

Born to the game, the younger Santanas found themselves forced to fill their mothers’ shoes after the two sisters were indicted by the feds. Instead of sticking to the blueprints they inherited, they deviated far from the script. The money, power, and respect shot straight to their heads, and they used their status as a weapon. Now, their deadly display of violence and bloodshed has drawn heavy attention and heat to the family name.

The Game Don't Change opens with DeMarco Jones' escape from a juvenile detention facility. Successfully evading the law, DeMarco builds his reputation on the streets of Queens as a fearless and charismatic drug hustler. Though he is only 16, women of all ages can't get enough of him. But DeMarco soon finds that he must battle ferociously to maintain his new kingpin status.