JOHN M. REILLY is Professor of English and Director of the Graduate Program at Howard University. He is the author of Tony Hillerman: A Critical Companion (Greenwood, 1996) and an editor of The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing (1999). His work on Popular Culture has earned him the George Dove Award from the Popular Culture Association, and his numerous publications on African American Writers have been recognized with a citation from the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S. (MELUS) for distinguished scholarship in ethnic literature.