With a writer’s keen eye, a longtime resident’s familiarity, and his own sly wit, acclaimed novelist Madison Smartt Bell leads us on a walk through his adopted hometown of Baltimore, a city where crab cakes, Edgar Allan Poe, hair extensions, and John Waters movies somehow coexist. From its founding before the Revolutionary War to its place in popular culture—thanks to seminal films like Barry Levinson’s Diner, the television...

In 2015, an unarmed Black man named Freddie Gray died in police custody in Baltimore. The video of his arrest immediately circulated on social media and news networks, and the brutality displayed sparked a protest movement on the streets of Baltimore. Six police officers in connection with Freddie Gray's death were charged, but in the end juries returned no guilty verdicts. With immersive detail and frank talk from community members, activists, academics,...

A Baltimore detective and a medical examiner must work together when the witnesses of a long-ago crime become the victims of a deranged killer in this gripping romantic suspense novel.
Baltimore city Homicide Detective JD Fitzpatrick has seen a lot of horrific violence, both as a cop and during his deployment in Afghanistan, but nothing like the trail of tortured bodies that are turning up throughout the city. He’s up against a brutal...

Touching upon such topics as fatherhood, race, and faith, this collection of essays describes the author's struggles in 2016 to make a home in Baltimore, a place that eventually became the foundation for him to explore his personal and spiritual history, as well as the city's untold stories.