Anthologies

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. 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 O’Brien, David Corbett, Scott Phillips, Nora Pierce, Tod Goldberg, Bliss Esposito, Felicia Campbell, Jaq Greenspon, José Skinner, Pablo Medina, Christine McKellar, Lori Kozlowski, Vu Tran, Celeste Starr, Preston L. Allen, and Janet Berliner. From the introduction by Jarret Keene & Todd James Pierce: “‘ Ooh, Las Vegas ,’ sang the pioneering country-rocker Gram Parsons. ‘ Every time I hit your Crystal City, you know you’re gonna make a wreck out of me .’ As Las Vegans, we regularly read about these wrecked lives in newspapers and magazines. We routinely observe people going about their wildly destructive antics on mainstream TV. Often we can’t believe these stories are unfolding in our city. They almost seem like put-ons, elaborate pranks borrowed from atrocious cut-rate screenplays. But there they are, these inhabitants of our city, their mug shots staring us down, making us wonder if what Parsons said is really true―that in Las Vegas your only real friend is the queen of spades . . . The stories gathered in Las Vegas Noir are written by longtime residents and avid chroniclers of Sin City, authors who take you far beyond the neon of Caesars Palace and into the neighborhoods too dangerous for CSI. Absolutely cliché-free, these stories are full of flesh-and-blood characters trapped in dire circumstances that only real Las Vegas neighborhoods can spring.“

Finally: the perfect stocking stuffer for the crime fiction lover in your life! With a foreword by CWA Diamond Award-winner Peter Lovesey, these eighteen delightful holiday stories by your favorite Soho Crime authors contain laughs, murders, and plenty more. This captivating collection, which features bestselling and award-winning authors, contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming  reminders of the spirit of the season. Nine mall Santas must find the imposter among them. An elderly lady seeks peace from her murderously loud neighbors at Christmastime. A young woman receives a mysterious invitation to Christmas dinner with a stranger. Niccolò Machiavelli sets out to save an Italian city. Sherlock Holmes’s one-time nemesis Irene Adler finds herself in an unexpected tangle in Paris while on a routine espionage assignment. Jane Austen searches for the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s stolen diamonds. These and other adventures in this delectable volume will whisk readers away to Christmases around the globe, from a Korean War POW camp to a Copenhagen refugee squat, from a palatial hotel in 1920s Bombay to a crumbling mansion in Havana. Includes Stories By (In Order of Appearance): Helene Tursten, Mick Herron, Martin Limón, Timothy Hallinan, Teresa Dovalpage, Mette Ivie Harrison, Colin Cotterill, Ed Lin, Stuart Neville, Tod Goldberg, Henry Chang, James R. Benn, Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis, Sujata Massey, Gary Corby, Cara Black, Stephanie Barron and a Foreword and story by Peter Lovesey.

#1 Amazon New Release, The Silver Waves of Summer is a compulsively readable collection of crime stories by New York Times and International best-selling writers, and Edgar and Shamus Award winners. “Olsen has masterfully gathered an established crew of writers to maximum effect...A potent assemblage of briskly paced tales that will satisfy mystery and crime noir fans." -Kirkus Reviews “The Silver Waves of Summer is perfect reading for long, hot days. It was incredibly satisfying and reassuring to read [such] intelligent and thoughtful work. – Amazon review “ This is a truly impressive collection of “surf noir” stories .” -Amazon Review In “Lighthouse Scene for Miles ,” internationally best-selling writer Michael Scott Moore ( The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast ) takes us back to the famed Lighthouse Cafe in 1950’s Southern California, in a story featuring the great jazz legend, Miles Davis. NY Times best-selling writer Tod Goldberg ( Gangsterland, Living Dead Girl ) brings us a compelling new short story, “The Summer of ’86,” where a recently released bank robber, Mitch Lenney, travels to a sleepy seaside town on the Monterey Bay to help his sister run a bike shop after her boyfriend suddenly disappears. This is a crime noir short not to be missed. In “Off the 405,” Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara ( Snakeskin Shamisen, Clark and Division ) takes us on a beach excursion where three families meet on a hot, sunny day in Southern California that ends with a high-speed chase up the 405, against traffic. In a murder mystery that rivals Agatha Christie, “The Naked and the Dead” by Shamus Award winner Charles Ardai ( Songs of Innocence, Little Girl Lost ) transports us to a private nude beach on the East Coast, where a member is murdered in an impossible fashion. It is up to private detective Susan Jaffe to solve the case. In “In the Bank” by Antoine Wilson ( Panorama City, Mouth to Mouth ), two friends embark on an adventure to intercept a drug cartel’s shipment by disguising an old fishing boat as US Coast Guard to disastrous consequences. In “The Five Thieves of Bombay Beach” by Rob Roberge ( Liar, More than They Could Chew ), we follow Duane Reed to the Salton Sea with its postapocalyptic landscape in a search of a missing person: Duane’s father, Walt Reed, who disappeared years before somewhere in Bombay Beach. Things take a sinister turn in a new horror story by the talented Samantha Tkac. In “Sundays are for Robberies,” two sisters have each other’s back at all costs, including when it comes to murder.

The perfect holiday gift for the crime fiction lover in your life! Curated by New York Times bestselling author Tod Goldberg, this collection of eleven delightful and twisted Hanukkah capers will entertain you through all eight nights of the Festival of Lights. In Stefanie Leder’s “Not a Dinner Party Person”—finalist for the ITW Thriller Award for Best Short Story—an unstable pharmaceutical rep tries not to kill anyone at her family dinner on the last night of Hanukkah; in Ivy Pochoda’s “Johnny Christmas,” a taciturn Gulf War vet commissions a tattoo from a man he knew from his prison days, a man not named Christmas but Goldfarb; in David L. Ulin’s “Shamash,” it’s the last night of Hanukkah, and a live-at-home adult son considers doing something drastic to get out of his elderly father’s Upper West Side apartment; in James D.F. Hannah’s “Twenty Centuries,” a pair of detectives solve a curiously unprompted murder during the holiday season. This captivating collection contains old-school slapstick comedy, hardboiled noir, gritty procedurals, and poignant reminders of the meaning of Hanukkah, offering something for almost every reader willing to take the journey through these twisted tales. With stories by: Ivy Pochoda, David L. Ulin, James D.F. Hannah, Lee Goldberg, Nikki Dolson, J.R. Angelella, Liska Jacobs, Gabino Iglesias, Stefanie Leder, and Jim Ruland, plus a foreword and story by Tod Goldberg.