Barry C. Davis

PLANET BLACK is a novel that addresses the prominent issues of race and technology in America. There are two dominant forces in American society - race and technology. We bear witness to a continuous string of racially tinged events. Some are minor (the YouTube video showing an everyday racial confrontation) or major (another video showing the death of a person of color at the hands of someone in authority). We are also bombarded with technological innovations daily, self-driving tractor trailers in Arizona and the rise of speaker-assistants in American homes as examples. Both are all-pervasive and beg the question of where this is heading for our country and the world. PLANET BLACK offers a vision of the future, one that is more uncomfortable than our present. The pandemic which strikes at the beginning of the novel places people of African descent in charge of the planet. This disaster forces African Americans to discuss and confront issues of race, justice and what it means to be an American. In this way, the reader, a person of any race, is forced to consider those questions as well. Technology threatens this post-pandemic America, tech that is a simple extension of the innovations we have seen thus far. The story speaks to the history of race in America and the increasing dominance of technology in our lives. This a futuristic thriller that is exciting and thought-provoking.

The thrilling saga of the Powell family continues in A Strange and Bitter Fruit: The Peacemaker, a follow-up to the bestselling historical novel A Strange and Bitter Fruit. The book opens in 1913, seven years after the tragic conclusion of A Strange and Bitter Fruit. At the heart of The Peacemaker are four males, each consumed by anger and hate given the events portrayed in the previous novel. Robert Powell, son of the wronged Thomas "Tee" Powell, doggedly pursuing the elusive Wendell Pike, the last surviving Klansman of the group responsible for lynching Tee's parents and sisters. Clellon Folmar Junior, obsessed with revenge since youth after viewing his father's body, one that was tortured and mutilated by Tee, is a federal agent. Charles Marston, US Army officer and another man dedicated to the destruction of the Powells. As a youth Charles had glimpsed the shattered body of his father Marshall, another victim of Tee Powell. Innocent William Reems, mixed race son of Billy Reems, rounds out the angry quartet. Although a person of color, William develops a deep hatred of all black people, an internal conflict with tragic consequences. The Peacemaker confronts the issues of the first novel - violence, revenge, racial injustice - as reflected in the lives of these four men and in the context of the challenges present in the early 20th Century. Who among these men is able to put past events behind them to confront a shared evil, a shared threat? Who will become The Peacemaker?

It is December 1972. Sweets Maybrey climbs the stairs to his office. He is wounded from an assassination attempt, blood slowing leaking out of his neck. He sits at his ancient desk, awaiting the arrival of the person who orchestrated the attempt on his life. He knows that they are on their way to finish the job. While waiting he considers all that has led him to this point. Six months earlier Sweets Maybrey was a rich, powerful twenty-year-old, the new boss of black crime in west Philadelphia. Every week his subordinates pressed envelopes full of pungent cash into his hands, the proceeds from bookmaking, drugs and prostitution. Every day beautiful women offered their bodies for his pleasure. Men twice his age humbled themselves before him. He, seemingly, was a man who had it all. But Sweets, wanting to show the "old heads" that he was a worthy leader, decided that he wanted more. He went to war over the so called Green Fields, areas outside Philly with a growing black population. This decision placed him in conflict with his Mafia straw bosses, triggering a second front to his war. Sweets' personal life was no less dangerous as his mentor, bodyguard and fianc all had motive to kill him. Back in his office Sweets Maybrey presses a damp towel to his neck - the blood isn't slowing down. He needs to go to the hospital but he does not rise. He will wait, wait until his would-be killer shows themselves. Then, he will kill or be killed. Young, Gifted and Bad is the second novel in the Sweets Maybrey series, a follow-up to the debut Sweets.