As a guest recently on the Tavis Smiley Show on NPR, Bailey offered her views on the cultural climate that existed at the time of the now controversial 1989 case of the New York City Central Park jogger. The introduction of new evidence in that case finally overturned the verdict. This is the kind of discussion that is right up Bailey�s alley. A self-described "cultural criminologist," her viewpoints are well grounded in her research about crime in American social history.

Her research interests focus on crime and criminal justice as it relates to American social history and particularly to issues of race/ethnicity, class and gender. She has written three nonfiction works on African-American responses to issues of crime and justice, but it is her fiction that gives her an artistic outlet. "I don�t remember when I didn�t write. I was a shy child and it was one of those things that I could do alone. In my teens I discovered mysteries," says Bailey. Just published, Old Murders, (Silver Dagger Mysteries) is Bailey�s third book in the Lizzie Stuart mystery series.

Lizzie Stuart, like her creator Bailey, is an African-American woman, Virginia native and university criminal justice professor. Frankie Bailey may not solve murders, but like Lizzie, she discusses issues of race, class, and gender with her students and encourages them to think critically about the culture of their society and how it shapes them.