Sunday, October 18, 2020

Twelve mysteries featuring BIPOC protagonists

Jennifer Baker was named the 2019 Publishers Weekly Star Watch “SuperStar” because her “varied work championing diversity in publishing has made her an indispensable fixture in the book business.” She is the recipient of a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship and a 2017 Queens Council on the Arts New Work Grant (as well as the QCA Jr. Board Artistic Excellence Award) in Nonfiction Literature for her WIP essay collection. Her essay “What We Aren’t” was also listed as a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2018. Her short story “The Pursuit of Happiness” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for 2017 by Newtown Literary Journal and is featured in the anthology What God Is Honored Here? Baker is the editor of Everyday People: The Color of Life—A Short Story Anthology with Atria Books. Her YA novel Forgive Me Not will publish with Putnam Books for Young Readers in 2022.

At Electric Lit, Baker tagged twelve mystery novels featuring Black, Indigenous, and POC protagonists, including:
Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok

Doting eldest daughter Sylvie Lee visits a family member in the Netherlands and disappears. Bereft younger sister Amy seeks answers and through her journey unearths what her seemingly fearless sibling kept hidden from everyone.
Read about the other entries on the list.

Searching for Sylvie Lee is among Katherine St. John's eleven novels of vacations gone horribly wrong.

The Page 69 Test: Searching for Sylvie Lee.

--Marshal Zeringue