In keeping with the tradition of the Noir series, Boston Noir 2 is made up of the works of several celebrated authors whose work is tied together by a common setting. After the massive success of the first Boston Noir, bestselling author Dennis Lehane is back as curator for another anthology of crime stories set in Boston. The Boston Noir 2 collection features reprints of the classic chilling short stories and novel excerpts that brought the world of noir to its knees. Contributors include Pulitzer winners Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike.

Malice and mayhem simmer beneath the surface of one of America's favorite vacation areas. “Youthful alienation and despair dominate the 13 stories in Akashic’s noir volume devoted to Cape Cod. [It] will satisfy those with a hankering for a taste of the dark side.” —Publishers Weekly “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 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: William Hastings, Elyssa East, Dana Cameron, Paul Tremblay, Adam Mansbach, Seth Greenland, Lizzie Skurnick, David L. Ulin, Kaylie Jones, Fred G. Leebron, Ben Greenman, Dave Zeltserman, and Jedediah Berry. From the introduction by David L. Ulin: “Here, we see the inverse of the Cape Cod stereotype, with its sailboats and its presidents. Here, we see the flip side of the Kennedys, of all those preppies in docksiders eating steamers, of the whale watchers and bicycles and kites. Here, we see the Cape beneath the surface, the Cape after the summer people have gone home. It doesn’t make the other Cape any less real, but it does suggest a symbiosis, in which our sense of the place can’t help but become more complicated, less about vacation living than something more nuanced and profound . . . "For me, Cape Cod is a repository of memory: forty summers in the same house will do that to you. But it is also a landscape of hidden tensions, which rise up when we least anticipate. In part, this has to do with social aspiration, which is one of the things that brought my family, like many others, to the Cape. In part, it has to do with social division, which has been a factor since at least the end of the nineteenth century, when then summer trade began. There are lines here, lines that get crossed and lines that never get crossed, the kinds of lines that form the web of noir. Call it what you want—summer and smoke is how I think of it—but that’s the Cape Cod at the center of this book.“

Boston Noir 2: The Classics is now a Boston Globe best seller! "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 milltown resentment and pampered preppies." --Boston Globe "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 "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 "These stories take place in neighborhoods you know well, and that can drive a reader crazy as well as entice him or her, but the read is worth it." --Boston Column, Summer Reading pick “Boston Noir 2: The Classics is a thorough representation of what noir has been, is, and continues to become . . . The shadows over Boston are those of Bogart, leaning into the spotlight with that complexity of soul, that derisive navigation of morality and deviance. . . The shadows on this cover prepare the tone, that these thin darknesses can be willed into corruption with little effort, and the reader will learn the ease of giving into it.” --HTML Giant "There are few gifts I enjoy more than a box of 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. Edited by Dorchester's crime fiction king and Hollywood darling, Dennis Lehane...Boston Noir 2 overflows with stories from some of the best writers of our time...This is the perfect book to open after a long day...The danger, of course, is that at the end of each story, you'll go for just one more and stay up well past your bedtime. My advice? Indulge." --Patriot Ledger Classic reprints from: Classic short fiction reprints from: George Harrar, George V. 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.

Launched by the summer '04 award-winning bestseller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. 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, Jos 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.

Manila is not for the faint of heart. Population: over ten million and growing by the minute. Climate: hot, humid and prone to torrential monsoon rains of biblical proportions. The ultimate femme fatale, she's complicated and mysterious, with a tainted, painful past. The perfect, torrid setting for noir. Edited by Dogeaters (Penguin, 1991) author and National Book Award Nominee Jessica Hagedorn, and featuring original stories from a stunning group of multi-award-winning authors.

“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

This original anthology of noir fiction set in Maryland’s Charm City includes new stories by David Simon, Laura Lippman, Jim Fusilli, and more. As fans of the HBO series The Wire have known for years, Baltimore is home to a rich and diverse underworld that is matched by an equally rich and diverse literary tradition. This is the city where Dashiell Hammett worked as a Pinkerton agent. It’s also where Zelda Fitzgerald came for psychiatric treatment. In this sterling collection of noir fiction, some of Baltimore’s best authors “confront the full irony that is Charm City, a place where you can go from the leafy beauty of the North Side neighborhoods to the gutted ghettos of the West Side in less than twenty minutes, then find your way to the revamped Inner Harbor in another ten” (Laura Lippman, from the introduction). Baltimore Noir includes brand-new stories by David Simon, Laura Lippman, Tim Cockey, Rob Hiaasen, Robert Ward, Sujata Massey, Jack Bludis, Rafael Alvarez, Marcia Talley, Joseph Wallace, Lisa Respers France, Charlie Stella, Sarah Weinman, Dan Fesperman, Jim Fusilli, and Ben Neihart.

A collection of sinister stories set in Kansas City features contributions from such noted mystery authors as Daniel Woodrell, Nancy Pickard, and J. Malcolm Garcia.

Barcelona, with all its illustrious colour and exterior finery, hasn't always been able to curb its darker yearnings. Blame it on a bubbling, repressive concoction made with a pinch of Church, a touch of Crown and a large dose of General Franco to stir up the insides of its very independent and anarchic Catalonian spirit. Repression, vice, immigration - the 14 stories in Barcelona Noir will divert readers' eyes from Barcelona's lively Ramblas and Gaudi spires and open them to the city's tainted side; one that will never appear on any tour.

“Traverses Texas, finding evidence of the hard boiled, sultry, and disreputable throughout the state . . . Think of the book as a sort of criminal travelogue.” —Booklist If everything is bigger in Texas, then that includes the boldness of the criminals who call the state home. From large urban centers to the Cajun Gulf coast, there is big money to be made running guns, drugs, and catering to the greedy and disillusioned. Each distinctive region can claim its own special brand of outlaw. In Lone Star Noir, you’ll find stories by James Crumley, Joe R. Lansdale, Claudia Smith, Ito Romo, Luis Alberto Urrea, David Corbett, George Wier, Sarah Cortez, Jesse Sublett, Dean James, Tim Tingle, Milton T. Burton, Lisa Sandlin, Jessica Powers, and Bobby Byrd. “This isn’t J.R. Ewing’s Lone Star State. This is the Texas of chicken shit bingo, Enron scamsters, and a feeling that what happens in Mexico stays in Mexico . . . So what defines Texas noir? Who knows, but you better pray that blood doesn’t stain your belt buckle.” —The Austin Chronicle