Category: #Anthology

“All the heavy hitters, from Michael Connelly in Los Angeles to Joyce Carol Oates in suburban New Jersey . . . an important anthology.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
 
Features Dennis Lehane’s story “Animal Rescue,” the inspiration for the movie The Drop starring Tom Hardy.
 
Launched with the summer 2004 award-winning bestseller Brooklyn Noir, the groundbreaking Akashic Noir series now includes over sixty volumes and counting. The stories in USA Noir “represent the best of the U.S.-based anthologies, and the list of contributors include virtually anyone who’s made the best-seller list with a work of crime fiction in the last decade . . . a must-have anthology” (Booklist, starred review).
 
Featuring stories by: Dennis Lehane, Don Winslow, Michael Connelly, George Pelecanos, Susan Straight, Jonathan Safran Foer, Laura Lippman, Pete Hamill, Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Child, T. Jefferson Parker, Lawrence Block, Terrance Hayes, Jerome Charyn, Jeffery Deaver, Maggie Estep, Bayo Ojikutu, Tim McLoughlin, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Reed Farrel Coleman, Megan Abbott, Elyssa East, James W. Hall, J. Malcolm Garcia, Julie Smith, Joseph Bruchac, Pir Rothenberg, Luis Alberto Urrea, Domenic Stansberry, John O’Brien, S.J. Rozan, Asali Solomon, William Kent Krueger, Tim Broderick, Bharti Kirchner, Karen Karbo, and Lisa Sandlin.
 
One of Zoom Street Magazine’s Favorite Books of 2014
One of “100 Best Books for Readers Young and Old,” HispanicBusiness.com
 
“Perhaps the single most impressive feature of the collection is its range of voices, from Joyce Carol Oates’ faux innocent young family to Megan Abbott’s impressionable high school kids to the chorus of peremptory voices S.J. Rozan plants in a haunted thief’s head. Eat your heart out, Walt Whitman: These are the folks who hear America singing, and moaning and screaming.”—Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The Akashic noir series was launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Since then, there have been 60 original anthologies, all centered on a specific city, region, or neighborhood in the U.S. and abroad. The 37 stories in this collection represent the best of the U.S.-based anthologies, and the list of contributors includes virtually anyone who’s made the best-seller list with a work of crime fiction in the last decade. Among them are Lee Child, George Pelecanos, Michael Connelly, Don Winslow, Dennis Lehane, and T. Jefferson Parker. Pelecanos offers “The Confidential Informant,” in which a decidedly average street kid tries to live up to an older brother and please his father. The results are not what he bargains for. In “After Thirty,” Don Winslow paints a portrait of Charlie, the poster boy for antiheroes. Charlie is a navy guy, but everyone will tell you he’s no good, what with the drinking and brawling. It’s time to get back to the ship, but Charlie decides to hit a woman, and it gets worse. In “The Book Signing” by Pete Hamill, Carmody, now a best-selling author, returns home to his Brooklyn neighborhood for a book signing. He wonders if the girl he left behind so many years ago will remember him. Memory is a funny thing or, in this case, not so funny. A must-have anthology, particularly for libraries with spotty holdings of the previous U.S. collections. –Wes Lukowsky

Review

“It’s hard to imagine how the present anthology could be topped for sheer marquee appeal . . . Perhaps the single most impressive feature of the collection is its range of voices, from Joyce Carol Oates’ faux innocent young family to Megan Abbott’s impressionable high school kids to the chorus of peremptory voices S.J. Rozan plants in a haunted thief’s head. Eat your heart out, Walt Whitman: These are the folks who hear America singing, and moaning and screaming.”
― Kirkus Reviews

“A must read for mystery fans, not just devotees of Akashic’s ‘Noir’ series, this anthology serves as both an introduction for newcomers and a greatest-hits package for regular readers of the series . . . There isn’t a weak story in the collection . . . Strongly recommended for readers who enjoy mysteries published by Hard Case Crime, as well as for fans of police procedurals.”
― Library Journal, Starred Review

“So, thanks a million to antho editor and Akashic Books head honcho Johnny Temple for doing such a crackerjack job of overloading my schedule with these dark and dirty pleasures.”
― Austin Chronicle

“For those who prefer their crime closer to home, there is USA Noir, a veritable greatest hits of Akashic’s long-running, acclaimed noir anthology series, rounding up solid gold blackness of the bleakest and darkest kind . . . Like Chuck Berry sang, ‘Anything you want, we got right here in the USA.”
― Mystery Scene Magazine

“Hold the eggnog: What you need is a draft of ‘edgy fatalism and sexy recklessness,’ of flashy crime, gallows humor, and ‘desperate deals with a variety of devils,’ served up every year since 2004 by the editors of Akashic Books’ brilliant noir anthologies. From Brooklyn to Boston, from Phoenix to pre- and post-Katrina New Orleans, each volume in the series reveals a city’s distinctive inner darkness.”
― O, the Oprah Magazine

An expanded edition—with brand-new stories added to the fourth printing of this best-selling Noir Series installment. Here, the unseemly underside of Minneapolis/St. Paul is revealed like never before.

“If you’ve never read an Akashic Noir book, Twin Cities Noir is a fine place to start.” —San Francisco Book Review/Sacramento Book Review

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.

Brand-new stories by: John Jodzio, Tom Kaczynski, Peter Schilling Jr., David Housewright, Steve Thayer, Judith Guest, Mary Logue, Bruce Rubenstein, K.J. Erickson, William Kent Krueger, Ellen Hart, Brad Zellar, Mary Sharratt, Pete Hautman, Larry Millett, Quinton Skinner, Gary Bush, and Chris Everheart.

From the introduction by Julie Schaper & Steven Horwitz:

“St. Paul was originally called Pig’s Eye’s Landing and was named after Pig’s Eye Parrant—trapper, moonshiner, and proprietor of the most popular drinking establishment on the Mississippi. Traders, river rats, missionaries, soldiers, land speculators, fur trappers, and Indian agents congregated in his establishment and made their deals. When Minnesota became a territory in 1849, the town leaders, realizing that a place called Pig’s Eye might not inspire civic confidence, changed the name to St. Paul, after the largest church in the city . . . Across the river, Minneapolis has its own sordid story. By the turn of the twentieth century it was considered one of the most crooked cities in the nation. Mayor Albert Alonzo Ames, with the assistance of the chief of police, his brother Fred, ran a city so corrupt that according to Lincoln Steffans its ‘deliberateness, invention, and avarice has never been equaled.’ As recently as the mid-’90s, Minneapolis was called ‘Murderopolis’ due to a rash of killings that occurred over a long hot summer. Every city has its share of crime, but what makes the Twin Cities unique may be that we have more than our share of good writers to chronicle it. They are homegrown and they know the territory . . .”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Local editors Schaper and Horwitz have assembled a noteworthy collection of noir-infused stories mixed with laughter . . . The Akashic noir short-story anthologies are avidly sought and make ideal samplers for regional mystery collecting.”
― Library Journal

“The best pieces in the collection turn the cliches of the genre on their head . . . and despite the unseemly subject matter, the stories are often surprisingly funny.”
― City Pages (Minneapolis)

“Crime fans who missed the first round will find this expanded version worthwhile.”
― Publishers Weekly

“A fun . . . read . . . particularly ripe for picking by locals who’ll delight in recognizing their stomping grounds in the stories, but with enough unexpected turns to make it worthwhile for those outside the Midwest, too.”
― KnightsArts

About the Author

Steven Horwitz has worked in publishing for twenty-five years. He lives with his wife and two dogs in St Paul, Minnesota.

Dennis Lehane returns to coedit, with Cotton & Clarke, the sequel to the best-selling evergreen anthology Boston Noir, culling classic stories from the city’s dark literary legacy.

“The contributor list is delightfully quirky . . . The collection’s unifying element is a deep understanding of Boston’s Byzantine worlds of race and class—as seen terrifyingly in Andre Dubus’s tale of mill town resentment and pampered preppies.” —Boston Globe

Featuring stories by: Linda Barnes, Jason Brown, Andre Dubus, Chuck Hogan, George Harrar, George V. Higgins, Dennis Lehane, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert B. Parker, David Ryan, Kenneth Abel, Barbara Neely, Hannah Tinti, and David Foster Wallace.

From the introduction by Jaime Clarke, Mary Cotton, & Dennis Lehane:

“What is noir and what is not inhabits a gray area. Its definition is continually expanding from the previous generation’s agreed-upon notion that noir involves men in fedoras smoking cigarettes on street corners. Noir alludes to crime, sure, but it also evokes bleak elements, danger, tragedy, sleaze, all of which is best represented by its root French definition: black. We used this idea as our guide for this sequel to the best-selling Boston Noir anthology . . .

“The commonwealth is an endless source of fascinating landscapes: the autumnal light spreading across the Charles River; the ice floes in the wintry Boston Harbor; a spring air tantalizing leaves in Harvard Yard; the salty taste of summer as sunbathers peer into the horizon, shielding their eyes from the glare, squinting into the middle distance. Beyond the postcard fabric, though, lies a community populated by broken families, criminal minds, voyeurs, and outsiders. They look like you and me. These are their stories.”

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Unlike the first Boston Noir (2009)—and, indeed, unlike the Noir series as a whole—this collection features crime stories that have already been published. But that’s OK when you have the likes of Chuck Hogan, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert B. Parker, Linda Barnes, George V. Higgins, Dennis Lehane, and David Foster Wallace all under the same roof. Parker’s “Surrogate,” from 1982, offers Spenser fans a very early look at their favorite Boston PI; an excerpt from Infinite Jest, Wallace’s 1996 novel set in an ironic near future, should send readers to the library to either read or reread the whole book; Barnes’ “Lucky Penny” offers readers the debut appearance of fan favorite Carlotta Carlyle; and the outstanding stories from Lehane and Hogan are each worth the price of admission all by themselves. Followers of Akashic’s long-running Noir series—not to mention, of course, fans of Boston-set crime fiction—should eagerly devour this one. –David Pitt

Review

“This collection features crime stories that have already been published. But that’s OK when you have the likes of Chuck Hogan, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert B. Parker, Linda Barnes, George V. Higgins, Dennis Lehane, and David Foster Wallace all under the same roof . . . Followers of Akashic’s long-running Noir series―not to mention, of course, fans of Boston-set crime fiction―should eagerly devour this one.”
― Booklist

“There are few gifts I enjoy more than a box of dark chocolates. The very best surprise me, each candy layered with unexpected delights that leave me hungry for more. The same may be said of Boston Noir 2. It’s a collection of dark short stories by names you know, set in places familiar to Bostonians.”
― Patriot Ledger

“In a bloody tribute to this great city, Lehane and company have resurrected several out-of-print classics and pushed the meaning of noir into peculiar places . . . For those unfamiliar with Greater Boston and its literary heritage, Boston Noir 2: the Classics is a great place to start.”
― Chicago Center for Literature and Photography

“Akashic Books is this edgy press that you may or may not have heard of . . . Their noir series is sure to please fans of noir, and I recommend picking up one of the many titles, perhaps beginning with Boston Noir 2: The Classics . . . with contributors like David Foster Wallace, Joyce Carol Oates and Andre Dubus, how can you go wrong with Boston Noir 2: The Classics?”
― Sacramento Press

“14 superior selections in this ‘classics’ volume in Akashic’s series of regional dark crime short stories, the works of established writers that have stood the test of time.”
― Publishers Weekly

About the Author

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. He is the editor of Boston Noir and coeditor of Boston Noir 2: The Classics.

Venice, Italy, behind the tourist veil is revealed and dissected.

“Drifter” by Emily Mandel was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2013, edited by Otto Penzler and Lisa Scottoline

“Forget the magnificence of Venice’s art, architecture, and music, and delve into this tour of the City of Water’s murky depths . . . visions of a Venice not seen in tourist brochures.” —Publishers Weekly

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.

Brand-new stories by: Peter James, Emily St. John Mandel, Barbara Baraldi, Mike Hodges, Mary Hoffman, Maria Tronca, Matteo Righetto, Tony Cartano, Francesco Ferracin, Isabella Santacroce, Michelle Lovric, Francesca Mazzucato, Maxim Jakubowski, and Michael Gregorio.

From the introduction by Maxim Jakubowski:

“It’s one of the most famous cities in the world. Immortalized by writers throughout the years, frozen in amber by film and photography, the picturesque survivor of a wild history whose centuries encompass splendor, decay, pestilence, beauty, and never-ending wonders. A city built on water, whose geographical position once saw it rule the world and form a vital crossing point between West and East. A city of marchants, artists, glamour, abject poverty, philosophers, corrupt nobles, refugees, courtesans, and unforgettable lovers, buffeted by the tides of wars, a unique place whose architecture is a subtle palette reflecting the successive waves of settlers, invaders, religions, and short-term rulers . . .

Change in this most curious of cities is something almost imperceptible and invisible to the naked eye. Walking just a few minutes away from the Rialto Bridge, for instance, and losing yourself in backstreets, where the canals and small connecting bridges leave just enough space to pass along the buildings without falling into the water, it’s as if you are stepping into a past century altogether, with no indication whatsoever of modernity. You wade through a labyrinth of stone, water, and wrought-iron bridges, and after dark feel part of another world where electricity isn’t yet invented, a most unsettle feeling nothing can prepare you for . . .”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Sex, food and real estate inspire 14 hot-blooded new takes on crime in the magical city of Venice . . . Rather than crimes of passion, this collection focuses on the passion of crime, painting its noir in robust tones rather than gritty gray.”
― Kirkus Reviews

“Editor Jakubowski does an excellent job of selecting a variety of stories that represent all strata of Venetian life, from tourists visiting for Carnevale to criminals running illegal operations in the bay . . . A must-read for lovers of Venice . . . the presence of a new and intriguing voices, many of them Italian, will pique the interest of international-mystery readers.”
― Booklist

“Venice Noir, edited by Maxim Jakubowski, aims to shred through our preconceptions of this remarkable city. The 14 writers featured in this anthology of short stories take our travel brochure images of Venice and scatter them like confetti.”
― New York Journal of Books

About the Author

Maxim Jakubowski is a British writer and editor who has lived in Italy and returns there annually. He co-edited ROME NOIR, with Chiara Stangalino, and has also assembled London and Paris volumes for other publishers. His new novel Ekaterina and the Night is partly set in Venice and his non-fiction book of essays about the real cities of crime fiction Following the Detectives has been shortlisted for the MacAvity Award. He lives in London when not travelling the world.