This week, it’s my honor to host author, Frankie Y. Bailey.
Frankie Y. Bailey is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany (SUNY). Her areas of research are crime history, and crime and mass media/popular culture. She is the author of the Edgar-nominated Out of the Woodpile: Black Characters in Crime and Detective Fiction (Greenwood, 1991). She is the co-editor (with Donna C. Hale) of Popular Culture, Crime, and Justice (Wadsworth, 1998). She is the co-author (with Alice P. Green) of “Law Never Here”: A Social History of African American Responses to Issues of Crime and Justice (Praeger, 1999). With Steven Chermak and Michelle Brown, she co-edited Media Representations of September 11 (Praeger, 2003). She and Donna C. Hale are the co-authors of Blood on Her Hands: The Social Construction of Women, Sexuality, and Murder (Wadsworth, 2004). She and Steven Chermak are the series editors of the five-volume set, Famous American Crimes and Trials (Praeger, 2004). They also co-edited the two-volume set Crimes of the Century (2007).
Frankie’s most recent non-fiction books are African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study (McFarland, 2008), nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Agatha awards, winner of a Macavity award. She is the recipient of the George N. Dove Award (2010). With Alice P. Green, she is the author of Wicked Albany: Lawlessness & Liquor in the Prohibition Era (The History Press, 2009) and Wicked Danville: Liquor and Lawlessness in a Southside Virginia City (The History Press, 2011).
Frankie’s mystery series features Southern criminal justice professor/crime historian Lizzie Stuart includes Death=s Favorite Child (Silver Dagger, 2000), A Dead Man=s Honor (Silver Dagger, 2001), Old Murders (Silver Dagger, 2003), You Should Have Died on Monday (Silver Dagger, 2007), and Forty Acres and a Soggy Grave (2011). A short story, “Since You Went Away” appears in the mystery anthology, Shades of Black (2004), edited by Eleanor Taylor Bland. The Red Queen Dies (Minotaur Books/Thomas Dunne), the first book in Frankie’s near future police procedural series set in Albany, New York, featuring police detective Hannah McCabe, will be released in September 2013.
Frankie is a member of Sisters in Crime (SinC), Romance Writers of America (RWA), and Mystery Writers of America (MWA). She served as the 2009-2010 Executive Vice President of MWA and as the 2011-2012 President of Sisters in Crime (SinC).
What the Fly Saw
When the Watcher Becomes the Watched
Albany, New York, January 2020
The morning after a blizzard that shut down the city, funeral director Kevin Novak is found dead in the basement of his funeral home. The arrow sticking out of his chest came from his own hunting bow. A loving husband and father and an active member of a local megachurch, Novak had no known enemies. His family and friends say he had been depressed because his best friend died suddenly of a heart attack and Novak blamed himself. But what does his guilt have to do with his death? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. The minister of the megachurch, the psychiatrist who provides counseling to church members, or the folksy Southern medium who irritates both men—one of these people may know why Novak was murdered. Detective Hannah McCabe and her partner, Mike Baxter, sort through lies and evasions to find the person who killed their “Cock Robin,” But McCabe is distracted by a political controversy involving her family, unanswered questions from another high-profile case, and her own guilt when a young woman dies after McCabe fails to act.
Website URL: www.frankieybailey.com
Twitter: @FrankieYBailey
Amazon: What the Fly Saw
We’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment.
Thanks, Cleo. I have to say that I didn’t have a lot to write about until I became a criminal justice professor and found multiple topics for both fiction and nonfiction. Now I have more ideas for books than I have time to write.
This sounds like a fascinating story. I see you’ve come up with some great titles for other books, too, and often a title will make me pick a book and check it out. Thank you so much for sharing. I love finding new (to me) authors.
Hi Marja,
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you.
I agree with you about titles. A title will make me pick up a book, too. So I spend some time thinking about them and change titles multiple times befroe the book is done. The titles for the Lizzie Stuart books were mine, and so is the title for What the Fly Saw. But my publisher actually came up with a better title for the first Hannah McCabe book than I submitted. As I recall, my title was “The Red Queen’s Last Bow.” They came up with the easier to remember “The Red Queen Dies”.
Great “meeting” you, Frankie! What an impressive and interesting writing background you have–much success! What the Fly Saw is on my list…
Hi M.M.
Great meeting you, too, and thanks for the good wishes. I hope you enjoy What the Fly Saw. One of the high points of the research for the book was when I decided to fly out to California to take a tour of the virtual reality lab at Stanford University. That was really cool. But both books about Hannah McCabe have made me dig deeper into Albany history. And it’s been fun getting to know Hannah, a new protagonist, and very different from Lizzie, my other sleuth.
Hi Evelyn,
Thanks so much for hosting me. I see I need to update this version of my bio :). What the Fly Saw is the second book (sequel to The Red Queen Dies) featuring Hannah McCabe and her partner, Mike Baxter. I’m happy to answer questions from your readers about Hannah and the books’ near-future setting (that draws on true Albany history). I’m also happy to answer other general questions about writing/what I write.
All the best,
Frankie
Thanks for being a guest author on my blog, Frankie. I really enjoyed reading your post. Fascinating stuff.
Thanks, Evelyn. This is a great website. Love both design and content.