Eleanor Taylor Bland (December 31, 1944[1] – June 2, 2010) was an African-American writer of crime fiction.
[3] In the early 1970s, they relocated to the Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, Illinois[4] She and her husband remained together for 31 years before separating.
[9][10] Bland's first novel, Dead Time (1992), introduced her sleuth, African-American police detective Marti MacAlister, recently transferred from Chicago to the small town of Lincoln Prairie, Illinois.
Marti works in collaboration with a male partner, Polish-American Vik Jessenovik, and their contrasting styles have been described as city-reared, streetwise, spunky and intuitive and Baptist (Marti) versus meticulous and small-town-minded Catholic (Vik).
[13] Bland herself once commented that "the most significant contribution that we have made, collectively, to mystery fiction is the development of the extended family; the permanence of spouses and significant others, most of whom don't die in the first three chapters; children who are complex, wanted and loved; and even pets.