Valerie Wilson Wesley

Valerie Wilson Wesley is an American author, born in 1947 and raised in Ashford, Connecticut. She holds degrees from Howard University, Bank Street College of Education, and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and worked as an executive editor at Essence magazine while contributing to The New York Times, Family Circle, and TV Guide. She is best known for the Tamara Hayle mystery series, following a Newark private investigator and single mother, beginning with When Death Comes Stealing, for which she received a Shamus Award nomination for Best First P.I. Novel. More recently she has written the Odessa Jones Mysteries, beginning with A Glimmer of Death. Wesley has also written literary fiction and children's books, and has received the American Library Association Black Caucus's Excellence in Adult Fiction award.