THE CONJURE-MAN DIES by Rudolph Fisher

Before Walter Mosely and before Chester Himes, there was Harlem Renaissance author Rudolph Fisher and his 1932 novel, The Conjure-Man Dies: A Mystery Tale of Dark Harlem.  It's a book set in Harlem with an all-black cast, from the NYPD detective investigating the case to the physician assisting him to the suspects to the victim (who's a Harvard-educated African!).  It's well-written, full of twists and great characters and came as a total surprise to me when I read it recently.  It's a book more people should know about and read.  To that end, I wrote a piece about it for the Los Angeles Review of Books, a piece you can check out right here: The Conjure-Man Dies.