Mysteries and thrillers are among our favorite listens for an instant escape, though the genre, like others, has historically suffered from a lack of diverse representation. The good news is that the publishing landscape is changing to prioritize diversity in all genres of literature, allowing for different perspectives to flourish and inspiring future generations of writers. Here are some of our very favorite mysteries and thrillers by Black authors (and we’ve thrown in some horror for good measure) to date.
Ike Randolph has been out of jail for 15 years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek....
Brandon and Justine have just moved into their new house, an idyllic Craftsman bungalow in a picture-perfect enclave of East Los Angeles. Seemingly everything is perfect. Except what lies beneath the house could destroy it all...
For fans of Lisa Unger and Shalini Boland comes a propulsive short thriller about a mysterious attack and a young woman who must uncover the truth to protect herself....
From celebrated national leader and best-selling author Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps is a gripping, complexly plotted thriller set within the halls of the US Supreme Court....
From the award-winning master of horror and Afrofuturism Tananarive Due comes a modern classic of dark introspection. When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach...
Samuel L. Jackson gives a swaggering, darkly humored performance of Chester Himes' classic first novel....
In the ruins of the collapsed United States, private inspector, Cybil Lewis and her inspector-in-training, Jane, fill a need. When Jane insists they look into her cousin's disappearance, Cybil agrees and is catapulted into a world of lies and deceit....
When Lena Johnson’s beloved grandmother dies, and the full extent of the family debt is revealed, the black millennial drops out of college to support her family and takes a job in the mysterious and remote town of Lakewood, Michigan....
"You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than before." This is the seductive promise of Dr. Nzinga’s clinic, where anyone can get their lips thinned, their skin bleached, and their nose narrowed - if you can afford it....
Environmental devastation and economic chaos have turned America into a land of horrifying depravity....
It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. When she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, she says yes....
When the body of N’Gana Frimbo, the African conjure-man, is discovered in his consultation room, Perry Dart, one of Harlem’s 10 Black police detectives, is called in to investigate. Together with Dr Archer, a physician from across the street, Dart is determined to solve the baffling mystery...
Yetu holds the memories for her people - water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners - who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one - the historian....
N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights listeners with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption....
From debut author L. L. McKinney comes an action-packed twist on an old classic, full of romance and otherworldly intrigue. A Blade So Black delivers an irresistible urban fantasy retelling of Alice in Wonderland, but it's not the Wonderland you remember....
With Brooklyn becoming more gentrified by the day, Sydney fights to preserve what little is left by organizing a walking tour of her neighborhood's historic points of interest. With the help of new neighbor Theo, Sydney begins researching the area's past and present…
This book kicks off a charming cozy mystery series set in an ice cream shop - with a fabulous cast of quirky characters. Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family's ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she's going back to basics...
Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing....
Korede is resentfully loyal to her little sister Ayoola, who is pretty and outgoing—all the things Korede is not. Ayoola is also a killer, and with three dead boyfriends, Korede knows this is becoming a pattern...
