Akashic Noir

In Mississippi Noir, literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal short-story collection that highlights a mesmerizing and diverse set of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon Mississippi's past and present. Mississippi Noir features brand-new stories by Ace Atkins, Tom Franklin, William Boyle, Megan Abbott, Jack Pendarvis, Dominiqua Dickey, Michael Kardos, Jamie Paige, Jimmy Cajoleas, Chris Offutt, Michael Farris Smith, Andrew Paul, Lee Durkee, Robert Busby, John M. Floyd, RaShell R. Smith-Spears, and Mary Miller.

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Now, Accra joins Lagos, Nairobi, Marrakech, and Addis Ababa in representing the African continent in the Noir Series arena. Accra is the perfect setting for noir fiction. The telling of such tales—ones involving or suggesting death, with a protagonist who is flawed or devious, driven by either a self-serving motive or one of the seven deadly sins—is woven into the fabric of the city’s everyday life … Accra is more than just a capital city. It is a microcosm of Ghana. It is a virtual map of the nation’s soul, a complex geographical display of its indigenous presence, the colonial imposition, declarations of freedom, followed by coups d’état, decades of dictatorship, and then, finally, a steady march forward into a promising future … Much like Accra, these stories are not always what they seem. The contributors who penned them know too well how to spin a story into a web … It is an honor and a pleasure to share them and all they reveal about Accra, a city of allegories, one of the most dynamic and diverse places in the world. —Nana-Ama Danquah, from the introduction

Edited by the bestselling author of The Ice Harvest, St. Louis Noir thickens the Midwest quotient for the Akashic Noir series. Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. In the wake of Chicago Noir, Twin Cities Noir, and Kansas City Noir, all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series, comes the latest Midwest installment, St. Louis Noir. Masterfully curated by Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest (adapted for film, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton), this volume will chill the listener with heartland menace. Featuring brand new stories by: Calvin Wilson, LaVelle Wilkins-Chinn, John Lutz, Paul D. Marks, Colleen J. McElroy, Jason Makansi, S. L. Coney, Michael Castro, Laura Benedict, Jedidiah Ayres, Umar Lee, Chris Barsanti, L. J. Smith, and Scott Phillips.

Edited by Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller, this is a collection of stories that reveals all the dark complexities of this increasingly prominent city. In the wake of other settings in the popular Akashic Noir Series comes the latest California installment, Oakland Noir. Masterfully curated by Jerry Thompson and Czar of Noir Eddie Muller, this volume will shock, titillate, provoke, and entertain. The diverse cast of talented contributors will not disappoint. Here are brand-new stories by Nick Petrulakis, Kim Addonizio, Keenan Norris, Keri MikiLani Schroeder, Katie Gilmartin, Dorothy Lazard, Harry Louis Williams II, Carolyn Alexander, Phil Canalin, Judy Juanita, Jamie DeWolf, Nayomi Munaweera, Mahmud Rahman, Tom McElravey, Joe Loya, and Eddie Muller. From the introduction: Jerry Thompson: I think what we've put together in Oakland Noir is a volume where this city is a character in every story. He's a slick brother strutting over a bass line and tambourine duet. She's a white chick heading to farmer and flea markets to sell crafts and get hooked up with some fine guy with dreadlocks and a criminal record. And it's in the faces of the young and fearless pounding keyboards and snapping fingers, Snapchats, and Facebook timelines. It's the core of not only Black Lives Matter but all lives matter. We are the children of fantasy and of the funk. Eddie Muller: These days, writers and readers aren't denying the darker parts of our existence as much as they used to, especially in crime fiction. Some writers just do it for fun, because it has become the fashionable way to get published. You know, "gritty violence" and all that. The genuine darkness in noir stories comes from two places-the cruelty of the world's innate indifference and the cruelty that people foster within themselves. If you're not seriously dealing with one, the other, or both, then you're not really writing noir.