Walker, Blair S.

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Walker, Blair S.

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Home— MD.

CAREER: Former journalist; freelance writer.

WRITINGS

“DARRYL BILLUPS” MYSTERY SERIES

Up Jumped the Devil, Avon Books (New York, NY), 1997.

Hidden in Plain View, Avon Twilight (New York, NY), 1999.

Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2002.

OTHER

Inner City Miracle, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Reginald F. Lewis) Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Empire, Wiley (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Blair S. Walker is a former journalist who now works as a freelance writer. Walker is the coauthor, with Reginald F. Lewis, of the best-selling volume Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Empire. The book is based on Lewis’s uncompleted autobiography, which was left behind when Lewis passed away in 1993 at the age of fifty from a brain tumor. Walker stepped in to finish Lewis’s book, interviewing his friends, family, and numerous business associates to gain a thorough understanding and complete picture of the billionaire businessman. Lewis began as an African American growing up in segregated Baltimore, but he worked hard, gaining an education at parochial schools, and eventually attending Harvard University Law School. Lewis became a successful lawyer and businessman. At the height of his success, Lewis performed a leveraged buyout of Beatrice International Foods in 1987, and his personal wealth swelled to four hundred million dollars. Alfred Edmond, Jr., in a review for Black Enterprise, remarked that the book was “a requisite addition to an American business library that includes far too few books about accomplished African-American entrepreneurs.”

In addition to writing nonfiction, Walker is known for his mystery novels featuring black reporter Darryl Billups. The first book in the series, Up Jumped the Devil, introduces Billups, whose job is to cover the police beat while working for a white-owned Baltimore newspaper. Billups begins to receive phone calls warning of a neo-Nazi plot to bomb the NAACP headquarters, and he finds himself pitted against white supremacists as he attempts to thwart their plans. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly considered the book to be “a debut marred by awkward writing and sloppy characterization.” However, Emily Melton, in a review for Booklist, wrote: “Walker’s debut mystery makes fine entertainment.”

Hidden in Plain View continues Darryl Billups’s adventures. A serial killer in Baltimore is targeting young African American professionals, and Billups finds himself the killer’s next target. Jenny McLarin, in a review for Booklist, wrote: “This suspenseful, rich mystery will have readers impatient for the next installment.” Thea Davis, writing for the Mystery Reader Online, remarked that the book was “sufficiently interesting to overcome the occasional disjointed feelings one has from the author’s attempt to cram too much data into too small a space.” The series continues with Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes, in which Billups finds himself teamed up with homicide detective Scott Donatelli to investigate what appears to be a cover up. A contributor for Kirkus Reviews remarked: “Walker’s at his best when wandering the mean streets with Billups, or riffing on race, or just talking trash, with the mystery a real but secondary interest.” Rex E. Klett, writing for the Library Journal, called the book an “engaging addition to the increasingly popular genre of African American mysteries.”

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES

PERIODICALS

Black Enterprise, February, 1995, Alfred Edmond, Jr., review of Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun? How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Empire, p. 224.

Booklist, November 1, 1994, David Rouse, review of Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?, p. 465; February 15, 1996, Brad Hooper, review of Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?, p. 973; October 1, 1997, Emily Melton, review of Up Jumped the Devil, p. 311; April 15, 1999, Jenny McLarin, review of Hidden in Plain View, p. 1486; February 15, 2000, Deborah Taylor, review of Hidden in Plain View, p. 1097.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2002, review of Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes, p. 623.

Library Journal, October 1, 1997, Rex E. Klett, review of Up Jumped the Devil, p. 130; September 15, 1998, Denise A. Garafolo, review of Up Jumped the Devil, p. 130; April 1, 1999, Rex E. Klett, review of Hidden in Plan View, p. 133; June 1, 2002, Rex E. Klett, review of Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes, p. 200.

Publishers Weekly, October 3, 1994, review of Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?, p. 60; August 11, 1997, review of Up Jumped the Devil, p. 388; May 27, 2002, review of Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes, p. 40; August 26, 2002, review of Inner City Miracle, p. 55.