Detroit — in books!

National interest in Detroit has never been keener, but this year's bevy of Detroit books range all over the spectrum, and includes some homegrown talents that are hard to ignore. 

Chief among them would be Richard Bak. Best known for his fascinating contributions to another local magazine (Hour, if you ask), Bak's new book, Detroitland ($24.95, Wayne State), compiles several of his excellent stories into one neat package that's sure to please any die-hard Detroitophile. Subtitled "A collection of movers, shakers, lost souls and history makers from Detroit's past," these are stories you might have heard traced out for you — heck, even stories you thought you knew. But drawing upon historical records, clippings and interviews, Bak pens richly evocative histories that bring to life people and events of Detroit during and leading up to "the American century." In "Dark Days of the Black Legion," he dredges up the nearly forgotten right-wing vigilante group that sprang up in and around Detroit in the 1930s, ably illustrating their reign of terror. In "The Mysterious Daniel West," he tells the unlikely tale of a man who rose to serve in the state House of Representatives under an assumed identity — only to finally disappear without a trace. In "The Bomber That Fell From the Sky," he details how a British Vulcan XA908 aircraft came screaming out of the sky and crashed into Detroit's lower east side in 1958. In "Who Killed Barbara Gaca," he chronicles the tense days in 1955 after the disappearance of a 7-year-old schoolgirl turned the city upside down in a futile search, and how the investigation remains stalled decades later. In addition, you'll find loving tributes to Detroit's famous and not-so-famous, including Charles Lindbergh, Frank Murphy, Bill Kennedy, Albert Kahn, Hazen Pingree, Ben Turpin, Tom Tyler and many more. It's all done with the touch of a true storyteller, from the gripping first paragraph down to little kickers at the end that leave you both satisfied and wanting more. Detroitland is a wonderful achievement.

Much like the talented Bak, who makes 20th century Detroit his wheelhouse, in Hidden History of Detroit ($20, The History Press), young author Amy Elliott Bragg draws on Detroit's other two centuries to spin engaging tales of a city undisturbed by horseless carriages — but often just as chaotic. From Antoine Cadillac's arrival on these pastoral shores, it would seem Detroit has always been facing calamities of one sort or another: conflagrations, invasions, epidemics, disorders and drunkenness. But Bragg renders this rocky history in graceful prose with a warm, first-person touch that lovingly lingers over some of its most unusual characters, those both immortalized in statuary and street names or simply forgotten over the ages. You'll meet Clarence Burton, Jim Scott, Lewis Cass, Stevens T. Mason, Friend Palmer, Joseph Campau, Jean-Francois Hamtramck and a whole host of characters Bragg raises from the dead for a brief moment — if only so we can miss them properly.

> Email Michael Jackman