Eric Jerome Dickey, bestselling novelist, dead at 59

NEW YORK » Eric Jerome Dickey, the bestselling novelist who blended crime, romance and eroticism in “Sister, Sister,” “Waking With Enemies” and dozens of other stories about contemporary Black life, has died at age 59.

Dickey’s publicist at Penguin Random House, Emily Canders, told The Associated Press that the author died Sunday in Los Angeles after a long illness. She did not immediately provide details beyond listing four daughters among his survivors. Dickey was an aspiring actor and stand-up comic who began writing fiction in his mid-30s and shaped a witty, conversational and sometimes graphic prose style. It brought him a wide readership through such novels as “Sister, Sister” and “Naughty or Nice” and through his “Gideon” crime fiction series, which included “Sleeping With Strangers” and “Resurrecting Midnight.”