Higgins, Dennis Lehane, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert B. Parker, Hannah Tinti, Abraham Verghese, David Foster Wallace, and others.Dennis Lehane is the author of the Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro mystery series (A Drink Before the War; Darkness, Take My Hand; Sacred; Gone, Baby, Gone; Prayers for Rain; and Moonlight Mile), as well as Coronado (five stories and a play) and the award-winning novels Mystic River, Shutter Island, and The Given Day. Mystic River, Shutter Island, and Gone, Baby, Gone have been made into award-winning films. In 2009 he edited the best-selling anthology Boston Noir for Akashic Books.Mary Cotton is the pseudonymous author of nine novels for young adults, six of them New York Times bestsellers. She is also a fiction editor for the literary magazine Post Road, and is co-editor of No Near Exit: Writers Select Their Favorite Work from Post Road. She is co-owner of Newtonville Books in Boston, Massachusetts.Jaime Clarke is the author of the novel We're So Famous, editor of Don't You Forget About Me: Contemporary Writers on the Films of John Hughes, and Conversations with Jonathan Lethem, and co-editor of No Near Exit: Writers Select Their Favorite Work from Post Road. He is a founding editor of Post Road and has taught creative writing at University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Emerson College. He is co-owner of Newtonville Books in Boston, Massachusetts.

    Jones, George Pelecanos, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, James Grady, Julian Mayfield, Marita Golden, Elizabeth Hand, Julian Mazor, Ward Just, Jean Toomer, Roach Brown, Larry Neal, and others.George Pelecanos is an independent film producer, the recipient of numerous international writing awards, a producer and an Emmy-nominated writer of the HBO series The Wire, and the author of fifteen novels set in and around Washington, DC. He is the editor of the best-selling first volume of D.C. Noir.

    [It] will satisfy those with a hankering for a taste of the dark side."-- Publishers Weekly "A book full of cries in the dark, heavy drinking in the thin gray light of winter, and other dark poses. In other words, the stories sneak in the back screen door of those summer cottages after Labor Day, after all the tourists have gone home and Cape Codders of the authors' imagination drop their masks and their guards. It's a fun read, a little like tracing the shoreline of a not-quite-familiar coast."-- Boston Globe "David L. Ulin has put together a malicious collection of short stories that will stay with you long after you return home safe."-- The Cult: The Official Chuck Palahniuk Website Includes brand-new stories by Paul Tremblay, Seth Greenland, Ben Greenman, Fred G. Leebron, David L. Ulin, Dana Cameron, Kaylie Jones, and others.Los Angeles Times book critic David L. Ulin has been vacationing in Cape Cod every summer since he was a boy. He knows the terrain inside and out; enough to identify the squalid underbelly of this allegedly idyllic location. His editing prowess is a perfect match for this fine volume.David L. Ulin is book critic of the Los Angeles Times. From 2005 to 2010, he was the paper's book editor. He is the author of The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, and is the editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a 2002 California Book Award. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, The New York Times Book Review, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

    Cain, Chester Himes, Ross MacDonald, Walter Mosley, Naomi Hirahara, Margaret Millar, Joseph Hansen, William Campbell Gault, Jervey Tervalon, Kate Braverman, and Yxta Maya Murray.Editor Denise Hamilton is the author of the Eve Diamond series and the editor of "Los Angeles Noir." Her latest novel, "Los Angeles Times" bestseller "The Last Embrace," has been compared to works by James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler. She lives in Los Angeles.

    Each tale in this anthology edited by Ann Hood is set in a different part of the city. Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout's story takes place at Trinity Repertory Company. Thomas Cobb, whose novel Crazy Heart was made into a movie with Jeff Bridges, tees up at Triggs Memorial Golf Course, and Dumb and Dumber co-writer and co-director Peter Farrelly, a graduate of Providence College, sets his story in the Elmhurst neighborhood, near his old college stomping grounds."-- Boston Globe "Providence, of course, has a history of crime, the mob, corruption and other goodies. In this collection of 15 stories...we are given a darkly hued tour of the city in all its nooks and crannies by such excellent writers as Hood herself, John Searles, Bruce DeSilva, Peter Farrelly, Elizabeth Strout, Hester Kaplan and others, each with their own style, tone and sly approach that will keep you reading, waiting for the sudden murder, the end of troubled relationships, the discovery of bones....[A] wonderful collection."-- Providence Journal Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.Featuring brand-new stories by: John Searles, Elizabeth Strout, Taylor M. Polites, Hester Kaplan, Robert Leuci, Amity Gaige, Peter Farrelly, Pablo Rodriguez, Bruce DeSilva, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Luanne Rice, Dawn Raffel, Thomas Cobb, LaShonda Katrice Barnett, and Ann Hood.Anyone who has spent time in Providence, Rhode Island, knows that lurking in the shadows are many sinister noir elements and characters. The city is ripe for this volume, and Akashic is proud to have recruited the amazing Ann Hood as editor. The impressive contributor list conveys the caliber of Providence Noir, which joins Cape Cod Noir, Boston Noir, and Boston Noir 2: The Classics in sketching a dark and alternative portrait of these New England locales.From the introduction by Ann Hood:"Providence was founded in 1636 by a rogue named Roger Williams. Williams escaped here when Massachusetts was ready to deport him back to England. In the almost four hundred years since, we've become infamous for all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors, including serving as home base for the Patriarca crime family for decades. My very own Uncle Eddie--I can hear Mama Rose screaming at me: 'He wasn't a blood relative! He was related through marriage!'--was gunned down in the Silver Lake section of town in 1964, just a year after he drove me in his white Cadillac convertible in a parade as the newly crowned Little Miss Natick. The writer Geoffrey Wolff told me that once he went to a barber in Princeton, New Jersey and the barber asked him where he was from. 'Providence,' Wolff told him. The barber put down his scissors, raised his hands in the air, and said, 'Providence? Don't shoot!'"I've asked fourteen of my favorite writers to contribute short stories to Providence Noir. We have stories to make you shiver, stories to make you think, stories that will show you my beautiful, noirish city in a way it’s never been highlighted before."

    Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.Featuring brand-new stories by: Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, Ed Park, Gary Earl Ross, Kim Chinquee, Christina Milletti, Tom Fontana, Dimitri Anastasopoulos, Lissa Marie Redmond, S.J. Rozan, John Wray, Brooke Costello, and Connie Porter.Buffalo, New York, is still the second-largest metropolis in the state, but in recent years its designation as the Queen City has been elbowed aside by a name that's pure noir: The City of No Illusions. Presidents came from here; and in 1901, a president was killed here while visiting the Pan-American Exposition, by a man who checked into a hotel under a name that translates as Nobody.As Buffalo saw its prosperity wane, those on the outside could only see harsh winters and Rust Belt grit, chicken wings and sports teams that came agonizingly close. (Vincent Gallo's Buffalo 66 is less the doomed quest of a would-be assassin than the collective fever dream of every Bills fan.)Anyone who has spent more than a few days in Buffalo will tell you that this city can spar with any other major American metropolis in the noir arena. This highly anticipated entry in the Akashic Noir Series includes stories from Buffalo-affiliated mystery titans as well as up-and-comers.

    She is the author of five novels, including A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries and the memoir Lies My Mother Never Told Me. She teaches in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton and in the Wilkes University low-residency MFA program in professional writing.

    If you think Dallas is boring or white-bread -- well, perhaps you haven’t gotten out much and seen the dark edges of Big D for yourself. And if you haven’t, maybe you don’t even want to."--Dallas Morning News"If you want to delve into the creepier sides of Dallas, this is a good start."--Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate"Dallas Noir is a fiction mosaic, showing a city of class divisions precariously held together by money, land, and false love. It also shows the expanse of noir and it’s power."--MysteryPeople.com (MysteryPeople Pick of the Month)"The latest entry in Akashic Books’ award-winning noir anthology series doesn’t disappoint, featuring a Texas-sized serving of writing’s heavy hitters and satisfying short fiction."--Criminal Class Press"There are two reasons why you should buy Dallas Noir...Reason No. 1: you’ll enjoy reading it. Reason No. 2: the publisher, Akashic Books, has published these noir series all over the country."--D Magazine/FrontBurner"November 22 looms, and as the watershed nears, a new anthology of short stories sets out with a noble purpose: to make Dallas known for something more than the place where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated."--Dallas Culture Map"Yet, Dallas’ almost-fleeting presence, the glaring contrasts of the stinking rich and the hapless poor, its buxom women and its Texan masculinity teamed with Hispanic folklore, all find their way into each of these 16 short stories."--The Mercury (UTD Student Newspaper)"If we are going to commemorate the milestone anniversary of the worst crime ever committed in Big D, why not precede it with a few tales of bad luck, bad choices, and bad timing?"--M. Denise C."A great collection of brand new short stories."--Kick Ass Book ReviewsFeaturing brand-new stories by: Kathleen Kent, Ben Fountain, James Hime, Harry Hunsicker, Matt Bondurant, Merritt Tierce, Daniel J. Hale, Emma Rathbone, Jonathan Woods, Oscar C. Peña, Clay Reynolds, Lauren Davis, Fran Hillyer, Catherine Cuellar, David Haynes, and J. Suzanne Frank.From the introduction by David Hale Smith:My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise . . . The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s perfect tune “Dallas” is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He’s just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest? Or is he on his way home, flying out of Love Field, reminiscing after seeing the woman who stepped on him when he was down?In a country with so many interesting cities, Dallas is often overlooked—except on November 22 every year. The heartbreaking anniversary keeps coming back around in a nightmare loop, for all of us. On that day in 1963, Dallas became American noir. A permanent black scar on its history that will never be erased, no matter how many happy business stories and hit television shows arise from here. In a stark ongoing counterweight to the JFK tragedy are those two iterations of the TV show. Dallas is not a TV show. It’s a real city . . . For the past forty years, my capacity to be surprised by it has not diminished one bit. I hope the stories in this collection will surprise you too.

    Estleman, Craig Holden, P.J. Parrish, Desiree Cooper, Nisi Shawl, M.L. Liebler, Craig Bernier, Joe Boland, Megan Abbott, Dorene O’Brien, Lolita Hernandez, Peter Markus, Roger K. Johnson, Michael Zadoorian, and E.J. Olsen.

    Enter the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas, where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent.Features brand-new stories by: Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martínez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg, and Melissa Yi.Sarah Cortez, a law enforcement officer, is the award-winning author of the poetry collection How to Undress a Cop. She brings her heritage as a Tejana with Mexican, French, Comanche, and Spanish blood to the written page.Liz Martínez’s stories have appeared in Manhattan Noir, Queens Noir, and Cop Tales 2000. She is a member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and she lives in New York.

    Carter, John Crowley, Amy Bloom, Alice Mattison, Chris Knopf, Jonathan Stone, Sarah Pemberton Strong, Karen E. Olson, Jessica Speart, Chandra Prasad, David Rich, and Hirsh Sawhney.New Haven may be best known for Yale University, but its criminal dimensions run as deep as anywhere else on the Eastern Seaboard. Whether the setting is a college campus, the waterfront, East Rock, The Hill, or Wooster Square, the stories in this volume bring the full city to life—and death.From editor Amy Bloom:New Haven in not a tourist kind of town. Yes, if you want to see the Cushing brain collection of 400 brains-in-jars (with another 150 planned for display), including artifacts like the piece of steak signed (if that’s the word)—using an electrosurgical knife—by Ivan Pavlov, and plenty of infant skulls. Also, more transcendently, you can visit beautiful Beinecke Library, a six-story tower of translucent marble, instead of mere glass, protecting the rare books, including my favorite, the Voynich manuscript, written centuries ago in what seems to be a fictional language with drawings of plants that don’t exist. Also, for the picnickers, the tomb of Midnight Mary in the eighty-five-acre Evergreen Cemetery, right off Ella T. Grasso Boulevard. On her gravestone, it reads: The people shall be troubled at midnight and pass away.It’s a noir kind of town.I love New Haven. I asked other writers who have the same odd, deep affection for the city that I do to tell me their stories. Michael Cunningham, Roxana Robinson, Stephen L. Carter, Alice Mattison, John Crowley. And more. We’ve got the darkly funny, the darker, the ineffable, and the deeply brooding. What we’ve got for you, right here . . . is New Haven.

    Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, The Given Day) has proven himself to be a master of both crime fiction and literary fiction. Here, he extends his literary prowess to that of master curator. In keeping with the Akashic Noir series tradition, each story in Boston Noir is set in a different neighborhood of the city—the impressively diverse collection extends from Roxbury to Cambridge, from Southie to the Boston Harbor, and all stops in between. Lehane’s own contribution—the longest story in the volume—is set in his beloved home neighborhood of Dorchester and showcases his phenomenal ability to grip the heart, soul, and throat of the reader. In 2003, Lehane’s novel Mystic River was adapted into film and quickly garnered six Academy Award nominations (with Sean Penn and Tim Robbins each winning Academy Awards). Boston Noir launches in November 2009 just as Shutter Island, the film based on Lehane’s best-selling 2003 novel of the same title, hits the big screen. Dennis Lehane is the author of The New York Times bestseller Mystic River (also an Academy Award–winning major motion picture); Prayers for Rain; Gone, Baby, Gone (also a major motion picture); Sacred; Darkness, Take My Hand; A Drink Before the War, which won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel; and, most recently, The Given Day. A native of Dorchester, Massachusetts, he splits his time between the Boston area and Florida.PART I: FEAR & LOATHINGLYNNE HEITMANExit InterviewFinancial DistrictDENNIS LEHANEAnimal RescueDorchesterJIM FUSILLIThe Place Where He BelongsBeacon HillPATRICIA POWELLDark WatersWatertownPART II: SKELETONS IN THE CLOSETDANA CAMERONFemme SoleNorth EndBRENDAN DUBOISThe Dark IslandBoston HarborSTEWART O'NANThe RewardBrooklineJOHN DUFRESNEThe Cross-Eyed BearSouthiePART III: VEILS OF DECEITDON LEEThe Oriental Hair PoetsCambridgeITABARI NJERIThe CollarRoxburyRUSS ABORNTurn SpeedNorth Quincy

    RozanLost and found by Thomas BentilLook what love is doing to me by Marlon JamesHome sweet home by Sandra KittA visit to St. Nick's by Robert J. HughesNumbers up by Miles Marshall LewisThe big five by Joseph WallaceErnie K.'s gelding by Ed DeeThe prince of Arthur Avenue by Patrick W. PicciarelliYou want I should whack Monkey Boy? by Thomas Adcock

    Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.In this chilling portrait of America's Sin City, lady luck is just as likely to dispense cold hard cash as a cold-hearted killing.Brand-new stories by: John O’Brien, David Corbett, Scott Phillips, Nora Pierce, Bliss Esposito, Felicia Campbell, Jaq Greenspon, José Skinner, Pablo Medina, Christine McKellar, Lori Kozlowski, Vu Tran, Celeste Starr, Preston L. Allen, Tod Goldberg, and Janet Berliner. ??Las Vegas provides the classic sophistication and darkness necessary for a deadly noir story. Stylish, sultry, brimming with ambition and greed, the characters that populate this literary Las Vegas are pushed to the extremes of human experience. From the neon glitter of the Strip to the treacherous views of Red Rock Canyon and Boulder City, from the desperation of Naked City to the racial tensions of the Westside, no other location offers so many different avenues leading to serious trouble.  Many legendary authors have turned their attention to Vegas to investigate the city's moods and mysteries. Now, the most recent crop of acclaimed writers explore the secret neighborhoods and byways of America's most sinful city, offering readers not only compelling noir tales but also an insider's understanding of this steamy oasis. These authors take readers beneath the surface flash of Freemont Street and the Strip and into the gritty multicultural environs of underground Vegas.Jarret Keene is author/editor of three books, including the poetry collection Monster Fashion, the alt-travel tome The Underground Guide to Las Vegas, and the unauthorized rock bio The Killers: Destiny Is Calling Me. He lives in Las Vegas.Todd James Pierce is the author of three books, including the novel A Woman of Stone and the short story collection Newsworld, which won the 2006 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. He is an assistant professor of English at Cal Poly University in San Luis Obispo, California.??

    Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct location within the geographic area of the book. Grady and Graff, both Montana natives, masterfully curate this collection of hard-edged Western tales.From the introduction by James Grady and Keir Graff: This anthology is a road trip through the dreams and disasters of the true Montana, stories written by authors with Montana in their blood, tales that circle you around the state through its cities and small towns. These are twenty-first century authors writing timeless sagas of choice, crime, and consequences...You'll meet students and strippers, cops and cons, druggies and dreamers, cold-eyed killers and caught-in-their-gunsights screwed-up souls. But mostly, through all our fiction here, you'll meet quiet heroes and see the noir side of life that makes our Montana as real as it is mythic. No doubt the state's beauty will still make the very idea of Montana Noir seem incongruous to some. Noir is black-and-white. Streets and alleys. Flashing neon lighting a rain-streaked window. But while noir was definitely an urban invention, it knows no boundaries. Noir is struggle. It's doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. It's being trapped. It's hubris. It's being defeated yet going on. Sometimes it's being defeated and not going on.That's life everywhere. This is our Montana.