Noir Nation: International Crime Fiction Books

Soon after its founding in 2011, Noir Nation: International Crime Fiction became the globally recognized home of international crime fiction. Noir Nation ’s content is often dark, sometimes creepy, and sometimes humorous but always at the service of the literary imagination as it explores the darker regions of human experience, where the only crime is weak writing. This inaugural issue contains stories of a felon who hates books, a surgeon involved in the lurid murder of a nurse, a 7-11 stickup, the killing and night burial of a kangaroo, an ex-con who returns to prison, a venomous snake used as a murder weapon, a student/teacher romantic affair that promises ruin, revenge on an abusive priest and a Nazi collaborator, a missing mother, a serial killer in the woods, and a ruthless home aid nurse. It also contains a poem by a famous gun moll and a photographic illustrations of tattoo art. The issue mixes award-winning masters of hardboiled and literary crime fiction Paul D. Brazill, Bianca Bellova, Jean Charbonneau, Tristan Davies, Les Edgerton, Stephen Gibson, Timothy Patrick Gibson, JJ Toner, and Scott Wolven with newer and emerging writers Leah Chamberlain, R.F. Warner, Kevin Hardcastle, Gerald Heys, Kevin Levites, and Yewande Omotoso. It also includes commentary on the state of noir fiction by J. Madison Davis, Alan Ward Thomas, Melodie Campbell, Wendy A. Reynolds, Ann Littlewood, Ann Cleeves, Linton Robinson, and Joe Trigoboff.

Soon after its founding in 2011, Noir Nation: International Crime Fiction became the globally recognized home of international crime fiction. Noir Nation ’s content is often dark, sometimes creepy, and sometimes humorous but always at the service of the literary imagination as it explores the darker regions of human experience, where the only crime is weak writing. Issue No. 2 is rich with stories that tell of being stopped at a tense Israeli checkpoint, a man reflecting on the death of his sadistic mother while getting a tattoo, hunting jaguars in the Chimalapas jungle, a fatal conversation between a married couple on a Japanese mountain cliff, the consummation of a macabre wedding in Tangiers, a German psychopath who thinks himself a werewolf, a missing prostitute in Cambodia’s red light district, a Boston businessman trying to survive a murderous economy, barroom pickups that turn deadly, soldiers captured in World War II taking grisly revenge on their guards, the renovation of a theater that hides a crime, a pistol-packing Harlem grandmother who fends for her young, a road trip from New Orleans to Vancouver that ends in a Pulp Fiction style shootout, and hitchhikers who should have kept hiking. Contributors hail from no less than sixteen countries: Finland, Japan, Australia, Thailand, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Israel, Cuba, Canada, Columbia, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Entries include stories by classic noir writers such as Edogawa Rampo, considered by many the father of Japanese crime fiction; Paul Calderon, an actor who appears regularly on the television show Law & Order and who played Paul the bartender in the film Pulp Fiction; and first-time authors Mary Therese Gattuso, and Hubert Osprey. Afficionados of hardboiled crime noir will see new works by Cort McMeel, Nick Arvin, Ray Banks, Paul Calderon, Atar Hadari, Sophie Jaff, Lisa Lercher, Julia Madeleine, Court Merrigan, Joe L. Murr, Andrew Nette, Thomas Pluck, Victor Quintas, Stephen D. Rogers, Ulrike Rudolf, Bob Thurber, Ruben Varona, Corinna Underwood, and Tom Vater. The issue also contains an interview with Madison Smartt Bell talking about blowing out his knees with Tae Kwon Do and the influence on his fiction by Harry Crews, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and Dostoyevsky. And darkly disturbing entries from 400-year-old London’s Criminal Court logs that show how little has changed in the human drive to murder, maim, and enslave others. Tattoo photos by Miguel Angel, Madeline Keller-Yunes, Julia Madeleine, Ilya Shchanikov, Shaireproductions.com, Aroon Thaewchatturat, and Chris Willis. Translations by Andrew Kirk, Rowena Galavitz, Mary Tannert, and Eddie Vega.

Soon after its founding in 2011, Noir Nation: International Crime Fiction became the globally recognized home of international crime fiction. Noir Nation is often dark, sometimes creepy, and sometimes humorous but always at the service of the literary imagination as it explores the darker regions of human experience, where the only crime is weak writing. In celebration of Canada, Noir Nation No. 4 showcases several stories by Canadian writers, including Mary Agnes Fleming, as well as stories set in Canada by non-Canadian writers. In keeping with the journal’s international flavor, there are also stories from other parts of the globe. The issue is dedicated to Ghanaian poet Kofi Awoonor, who was murdered during the terrorist attack at the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. Collected by Las Vegas writer and managing editor Jonathan Sturak, this issue contains entries from some of the very best and emerging hard-boiled and literary crime fiction writers on the international scene, among them Lauren Cahn, Marina Perezagua, Richard Godwin, Melodie Campbell, Bianca Bellová, Joseph Lepis, Neliza Drew, Rob Brunet, Nik Morton, George Beck, Chloe Evans, Bruce H. Markuson, Jeffery Hess, Tony Haynes, Mike O’Reilly, Gerald Seagren, Edward McDermott, Ryan Priest, Peter Anderson, Al Cerda, and J.B. Christopher. The issue also offers an interview with Joseph Trigoboff, author of the best-selling novel The Bone Orchard and the recent memoir, Rumble in Brooklyn.