Best of
Noir

2007

Criminal, Vol. 1: Coward


Ed Brubaker - 2007
    Coward is the story of Leo, a professional pickpocket who is also a legendary heist-planner and thief. But there's a catch with Leo, he won't work any job that he doesn't call all the shots on, he won't allow guns, and the minute things turn south, he's looking for any exit that won't land him in prison. But when he's lured into a risky heist, all his rules go out the window, and he ends up on the run from the cops and the bad men who double-crossed him. Now Leo must come face-to-face with the violence he's kept bottled up inside for 20 years, and nothing will ever be the same for him again. Collects Criminal #1-5.

The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps


Otto Penzler - 2007
    Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best.Including:• Three stories by Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett.• Complete novels from Carroll John Daly, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective, and Fredrick Nebel, one of the masters of the form.• A never before published Dashiell Hammett story.• Every other major pulp writer of the time, including Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and many, many more of whom you’ve probably never heard.• Three deadly sections–The Crimefighters, The Villains, and Dames–with three unstoppable introductions by Harlan Coben, Harlan Ellison, and Laura LippmanFeaturing:• Plenty of reasons for murder, all of them good.• A kid so smart–he’ll die of it.• A soft-hearted loan shark’s legman learning–the hard way–never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger.• The uncanny “Moon Man” and his mad-money victims.

The Shotgun Rule


Charlie Huston - 2007
    Blood spilled on the asphalt of this town long years gone has left a stain, and it’s spreading. Not that a thing like that matters to teenagers like George, Hector, Paul, and Andy. It’s summer 1983 in a northern California suburb, and these working-class kids have been killing time the usual ways: ducking their parents, tinkering with their bikes, and racing around town getting high and boosting their neighbors’ meds. Just another typical summer break in the burbs. Till Andy’s bike is stolen by the town’s legendary petty hoods, the Arroyo brothers. When the boys break into the Arroyos’ place in search of the bike, they stumble across the brothers’ private industry: a crank lab. Being the kind of kids who rarely know better, they do what comes naturally: they take a stash of crank to sell for quick cash. But doing so they unleash hidden rivalries and crimes, and the dark and secret past of their town and their families.The spreading stain is drawing local drug lords, crooked cops, hard-riding bikers, and the brutal history of the boys’ fathers in its wake.

The Archer Files: The Complete Short Stories of Lew Archer, Private Investigator, Including Newly Discovered Case Notes


Ross Macdonald - 2007
    " Macdonald (born Kenneth Millar) also wrote several novelettes and short-stories involving Southern California private-detective Lew Archer. "The Archer Files" for the first time collects all the brief Archer fiction: the stories from Macdonald s 1955 paperback-original "The Name Is Archer," the additional tales included in the Otto Penzler-edited 1977 volume "Lew Archer: Private Investigator," and the three then-unknown novellas presented in Crippen & Landru s 2001 book "Strangers in Town." Also included in "The Archer Files" are several lengthy, never-before-published fragments of unfinished Macdonald stories: case notes, as it were, from the files of Lew Archer. Edited by Macdonald biographer Tom Nolan, "The Archer Files" is prefaced with Nolan s biographical sketch of Lew Archer himself -- the character Eudora Welty described as "a champion" and "a distinguished creation ... As a detective and as a man he takes the human situation with full seriousness. " Jeff Wong s cover is adapted from the 1955 paperback original, but depicting Ross Macdonald rather than Lew Archer.

Dead Boys: Stories


Richard Lange - 2007
    This is a breathtaking debut collection of stories echoing Raymond Carver and Denis Johnson, that illuminates men searching for redemption and love.

District 14 Season 1


Pierre Gabus - 2007
    Follow Michael the elephant as he arrives to the city known as District 14, a labyrinthine metropolis where humans, animals and aliens all co-exist.

How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling


Shawn Martinbrough - 2007
    In How to Draw Crime Noir, Martinbrough walks the reader step-by-step through layout, thumbnails, staging the action and working with actual scripts. Martinborough's art is cutting edge, has a 1940's vibe, but comes across contemporary, complelling, dramatic and urban. The book also contains twenty-two page original graphic novel, written and illustrated by Martinbrough.How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling is an instructional book based on the cinematic, high contrast noir style of acclaimed comic book and graphic novel illustrator, Shawn Martinbrough.Martinbrough’s work has been published by DC Comics, Vertigo and Marvel Comics, illustrating stories ranging from Batman to the X-Men. This is his first book, released through Watson-Guptill Publications and The Nielsen Company.In How to Draw Noir Comics, Martinbrough shows how the expert use of the color black is critical for drawing noir comics. He demonstrates how to set a mood, design characters and locations, stage action and enhance drama, and discusses important topics like page layout, panel design, and cover design.How to Draw Noir Comics includes The Truce, an original graphic novel written and illustrated by Martinbrough which incorporates the many lessons addressed throughout the book, and has an introduction by critically-acclaimed novelist Greg Rucka, author of the graphic novel Whiteout, currently in production as a major motion picture.

The Singer


Cathi Unsworth - 2007
    Together they formed Blood Simple, and for a while they made a lot of noise, a bit of money and caused a sensation wherever they went. Then Vincent eloped with Sylvana, singer for the ethereal Mood Violet, and it all went wrong. Six months later Sylvana committed suicide, the band fell apart, and Vincent disappeared. That was 1981 and twenty years on, journalist Eddie Bracknell hopes the story of Blood Simple will be the making of him. He?s got a book contract and the right contacts, it?s just that he can?t get the different stories he?s heard to fit together, never mind trying to work out what happened to Vincent. A compelling crime novel and a very modern fable, The Singer brings the intoxicating days of punk back onstage, with all its noisy creativity and explosive violence.

Dagger Key And Other Stories


Lucius Shepard - 2007
    This is a collection of short stories from the pen of Lucius Shepard.

The Vengeance Man/Park Avenue Tramp/The Prettiest Girl I Ever Killed (A Trio of Gold Medals)


Dan J. Marlowe - 2007
    His rich wife takes a fiendish pleasure in banging every guy in town. But Jim has a plan. He hires a detective to follow her. And the next time Mona steps out on him, he's ready. Because Jim is a man with a bigger plan than dealing with an unfaithful wife. Jim is thinking big he wants power, he wants respect, and if he can pull this one off, he just might be able to get it. Trouble is, the plan has to start with murder.PARK AVENUE TRAMP: During one of her blackouts, Charity McAdams Farnese walks into a downtown bar named Duo's and into the life of Joe Doyle, second-rate piano player and a man with a bum heart. Yancy the bartender knows that she's trouble, a rich girl with an itch, but Joe won't listen. All he knows is that Charity wants to love him. But Charity has a husband Oliver Alton Farnese. Oliver is a creature of habit and allows Charity her flings. But when this fling turns serious, Oliver has his own way of dealing with the situation.THE PRETTIEST GIRL I EVER KILLED: Accidents happen, but the town of Sherman seems to have more than its fair share of the fatal kind. Someone falls into a well, another drowns, another is killed by an exploding stove. Curt Friedland comes back to town to clear his brother of murder, convinced there is more to all these deaths than mere coincidence. Enlisting the aid of Velda, whose sister was supposedly murdered by Curt's brother, the two of them gradually begin to attract the attention of a very ingenious killer, a man well versed in the game of Death.

Music for the Dead


Luis Gutiérrez Maluenda - 2007
    New York is ruled by corruption and crime, and people take refuge in the day-to-day pleasures of life, turning in after listening to the jazz masters in clubs — surrounded by smoke and the flow of bourbon — in the early mornings.Mike Winowsky — a tough and cynical private eye with an immense love for jazz and bourbon — is hired by Duke Ellington to threaten a guy who is blackmailing his good friend Billy Strayhorn, the composer of Mike’s favorite jazz song Take The "A" Train.The case seems simple, but when the blackmailer is found dead under suspicious circumstances only hours after meeting Mike, things gets complicated. In his search for the truth and to prove his own innocence, Mike becomes involved in a shady corruption case which leaves a long string of bodies in its wake and links the alleys of Harlem with the offices of those representing the city’s upper circles.Music for the Dead pays tribute to the classic hardboiled novels of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald and is ideal to read with the soothing sound of Duke Ellington's piano in the background. And of course with a good bourbon in hand.

The Collected Ed Gorman: Out There in the Darkness & The Moving Coffin


Ed Gorman - 2007
    Come and meet the people in Ed Gorman's world. Some are funny, some are sad, some are violent, some are gentle, but every single one of them is thoroughly engaging. Limited to 200 signed and numbered two-volume hardcover sets. Both books are signed and numbered (matching numbers) by both the author and the introducer. Signed by Ed Gorman & Lawrence Block (Vol. 1) and by Ed Gorman & Max Allan Collins (Vol. 2). Cover art by Duncan Long.

A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir


Megan AbbottCharlotte Carter - 2007
    Includes a special fifty-page appendix of essays on female noir pioneers.Awards include:Daniel Woodrell’s “Uncle”—Nominated for the Edgar and Anthony awardsCornelia Read’s “Hungry Enough”—Winner of the Shamus AwardContents:It's too late, baby by Annette MyersHigh yellow by Libby Fischer HellmannThe kiss of death by Rebecca PawelBlue vandas by Lynne BarrettServed cold by Zoë SharpThe chirashi covenant by Naomi HiraharaThe token booth clerk by Sara GranThe big O by Vicki HendricksSchool girl by Lisa Respers FranceNora B. by Ken BruenBumping uglies by Donna MooreCall me, I'm dying by Allan GuthrieEverybody loves somebody by Sandra ScoppettoneHungry enough by Cornelia ReadSunny Second Street by Charlotte CarterInterrogation B by Charlie HustonThe end of Indian summer by Stona FitchBlooming by Sarah WeinmanRound heels by Vin PackerCherish by Alison GaylinCutman by Christa FaustThe grand inquisitor by Eddie MullerUncle by Daniel WoodrellUndocumented by SJ RozanAppendix : women in the dark

Hollywood Heroines: Women in Film Noir and the Female Gothic Film


Helen Hanson - 2007
    The endangered and dangerous female figures of Rebecca, of Jagged Edge and What Lies Beneath have a deserved and enduring fascination. Helen Hanson re-examines these gothic heroines of Hollywood and their meanings, in two of Hollywood's key generic cycles, film noir and the female gothic film. Starting at the beginning, with the origin of these cycles and the ways in which they represented women in the American film industry and culture of the 1940s, she traces their revival in neo-noir and neo-gothic films from the 1980s to the present.  She also places the female figures of the femme fatale, female investigator and gothic heroine within the shifting contexts of the film industry and debates in feminist film criticism.  Hanson examines a wide range of films from both periods, including Suspicion, Gaslight and Pacific Heights, and gives particular attention to their presentation of female stories, actions and perspectives. She reveals a diversity of female figures, representations and actions in film noir and the female gothic film, and argues that these women are part of a negotiation of female identities, desires and roles across a long historical period. Hollywood Heroines offers us new ways of thinking about classic and contemporary Hollywood heroines, and about the interrelationships of gender and genre.