Walter Mosley Novelist

Frankie Y. Bailey Novelist and criminal justice scholar

CRIME FICTION AUTHORS WALTER MOSLEY AND FRANKIE Y. BAILEY TO READ FROM THEIR NEW NOVELS

NYS Writers Institute, February 4, 2014

4:15 p.m. Seminar | Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, Uptown Campus
8:00 p.m. Reading | Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, Uptown Campus

CALENDAR LISTING:
Walter Mosley, novelist and bestselling author of detective fiction, best-known for his “Easy Rawlins” mysteries including the classic Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), and the newest installment, Little Green (2013), and Frankie Y. Bailey, UAlbany Criminal Justice professor and author of The Red Queen Dies (2013), a police procedural novel set in a futuristic Albany, will read from their work on Tuesday, February 4, 2014 at 8 p.m. in the Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center, on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m., the authors will hold an informal seminar in the same location. Free and open to the public, the events are sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute.

PROFILE
Walter Mosley, bestselling author of more than 40 books, and “one of this nation’s finest writers” (Boston Globe), is America’s leading author of detective fiction in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Time has described him as “a writer whose work transcends the thriller category and qualifies as serious literature,” and the AP has said, “only Mosley has employed detective fiction as a vehicle for a thoughtful, textured examination of race relations in the United States.”

Mosley is best-known for his series of mystery novels set in 1940s Los Angeles featuring African American private investigator Easy Rawlins. He launched the series in 1990 with the now-classic Devil in a Blue Dress (1990), and achieved widespread fame in 1992 when Bill Clinton announced that Mosley was one of his favorite authors. In 1995, Devil in a Blue Dress was adapted as a motion picture starring Denzel Washington.

Mosley’s twelfth Rawlins mystery, his first in six years, is the New York Times bestseller, Little Green (2013), set during the age of “Flower Power” in the mean streets of L.A. “in all their psychedelic 1967 glory.” Publishers Weekly called it “superb,” and Booklist said, “The return of Easy Rawlins is a major event for crime-fiction fans.” The NPR reviewer said, “[Little Green] takes us back to Devil in a Blue Dress, reminding longtime readers like me how we got hooked in the first place.”

Mosley’s previous bestsellers include the Rawlins mysteries, Blonde Faith (2007), Cinnamon Kiss (2005),and Bad Boy Brawly Brown (2002); the Fearless Jones series, including Fearless Jones (2001), Fear Itself (2003),and Fear of the Dark (2006); and the story collection featuring Socrates Fortlow, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (1997), which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award for contributions to understanding racism.

Mosley is also a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, and a founder of the PEN American Center Open Book Committee.

Frankie Y. Bailey, UAlbany Criminal Justice professor and writer of detective fiction, is the author most recently of The Red Queen Dies (2013), the first novel in a “near-future” police procedural series set in Albany. Memory-erasing drugs complicate the hunt for a serial killer in a world of intrusive electronic surveillance. Booklist said that the novel’s protagonist, detective Hannah McCabe, “shows she has what it takes to succeed at her work and to win readers,” in “this strong start to a projected series.” Julie Hyzy, New York Times bestselling author of the White House Chef Mysteries, said, “Fans will be thrilled by Frankie Y. Bailey’s newest mystery… [which features] more twists and turns than Alice experienced down the rabbit hole. A great read. Don’t miss it!”

Bailey has finished the first draft of a sequel to The Red Queen Dies, tentatively titled Cock Robin’s Funeral. She is also the author of five books in the Silver Dagger mystery series featuring crime historian and amateur sleuth Lizzie Stuart, including most recently Forty Acres and a Soggy Grave (2011).

Bailey’s nonfiction works include Wicked Albany: Lawlessness & Liquor in the Prohibition Era (2009, with Alice Green); African American Mystery Writers (2008); Blood on Her Hands (2004, with Donna Hale); Famous American Crimes and Trials (2004, with Steven Chermak); and Out of the Woodpile: Black Characters in Crime and Detective Fiction (1991), which was nominated for the Edgar Award.

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.