Boston Noir 2: The Classics (Akashic Noir)

BONUS: This e-book includes "Femme Sole," Dana Cameron's Edgar Award-nominated story from the original Boston Noir anthology. With Boston Noir 2: The Classics, Dennis Lehane returns to coedit, with Cotton & Clarke, the sequel to the best-selling evergreen anthology Boston Noir. Classic reprints from: 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. Launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each "Classics" book is comprised of reprints by different authors, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. 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 best sellers. She is also a fiction editor for the literary magazine Post Road, and is coeditor of No Near Exit: Writers Select Their Favorite Work from Post Road. She is co-owner of Newtonville Books in Boston. 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, Conversations with Jonathan Lethem, and coeditor 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 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.
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."
--The 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

“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.

BONUS: New York's fifth borough finally enters the Noir Series arena, completing the series tour of the world's noirest city. This e-book includes each editor's story from the first four volumes: Brooklyn Noir (Tim McLoughlin), Manhattan Noir (Lawrence Block), Bronx Noir (S.J. Rozan) and Queens Noir (Robert Knighly). Featuring Brand-new stories by: Bill Loehfelm, S.J. Rozan, Ted Anthony, Todd Craig, Ashley Dawson, Bruce DeSilva, Louisa Ermelino, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Michael Largo, Mike Penncavage, Linda Nieves-Powell, Edward Joyce, and Shay Youngblood, and Patricia Smith. Launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller 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 geographical area of the book. ASK ANY RESIDENT OF NEW YORK CITY to name the five boroughs and they'll rattle off four with no problem whatsoever, hesitating and scrunching their countenance before Staten Island occurs to them'if, indeed, it occurs to them at all. To them, it's that tiny claustrophobic place where everybody knows everybody else's business and the breezes that blast through drape everything in the stink of landfill. It's dim and industrial, populated by swaggering Jersey Shore wannabes and residents who spend most of their time aspiring to be elsewhere. The "forgotten borough," is not only routinely forgotten'it's misunderstood, mocked, dismissed, maligned, ridiculed, belittled, and scorned. While this probably causes the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce no end of frustration, it makes the island the perfect haven for mayhem, mischief, and murder. If people can't even remember that the place exists, what better haven for noir' What better place to stash a stiff' THESE STORIES--FROM B-BOYS AND SI NATIVES to Edgar Award-winners'bring Staten Island front and center as a borough that's bellowing and boisterous and insisting on identity. Staten Island may be the last New York borough to be represented in the Noir Series, but that's only because no one knows it. This introduction will be intriguing, addictive, and not totally comfortable. PATRICIA SMITH is the author of six acclaimed poetry volumes, including Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, and Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection. Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah was published by Coffee House Press in the spring of 2012. Her work has been published in Poetry, the Paris Review, Tin House, TriQuarterly, and other literary journals and anthologies, including the 2011 editions of both Best American Poetry and Best American Essays. In addition to her poetic works, Smith is also the author of Africans in America, a companion volume to the groundbreaking PBS documentary, and the children's book Janna and the Kings, which won Lee & Low Books' New Voices Award. She is currently is a professor at the City University of New York's College of Staten Island, and serves on the faculties of Cave Canem and the MFA programs at Stonecoast/University of Southern Maine and Sierra Nevada College ?When They Are Done with Us" by Patricia Smith was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2013 , edited by Otto Penzler and Lisa Scottoline Brand-new stories by: Bill Loehfelm, S.J. Rozan, Ted Anthony, Todd Craig, Ashley Dawson, Bruce DeSilva, Louisa Ermelino, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Michael Largo, Mike Penncavage, Linda Nieves-Powell, Patricia Smith, Shay Youngblood, and Edward Joyce. "Staten Island, the last of New York City's five boroughs to enter Akashic's noir series, severs as the setting for this exceptionally strong anthology." ? Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Smith's introduction is a revelation. She knows the Island I have in my head. It was like finding a literary sibling, separated since birth." ? Washington Independent "It's not enough for noir to be dark. It's got to be bad-ass. Its words, its decaying and horrible beauty have got to hit you like a spiked heel dragged from your guts to your gullet. It's got to twist the hot knife of passion in that soft space right below your belly while pumping bullets into your heart. It's got to make you bleed. Akashic Books' latest in their noir series, Staten Island Noir features some dusky and drop-dead gorgeous gems (emphasis on the dead) that do just that." ? Grub Street Daily "Staten Island is the forgotten borough, lacking a subway system, left out of Jay-Z's songs, known for organized crime, bad accents, fake tans, and garbage?which makes it a rich setting for Akashic's noir series...In a thrilling tilt-a-whirl of crime and drama, editor Patricia Smith has carefully chosen writers concerned with the true nature of the small suburban borough." ? Electric Literature's "The Outlet" "Each story in this enjoyable collection has its own charms, if the words 'enjoyable' or 'charms' can be used with these dark tales, and each can stand-alone. However, if, like me, you had always looked at Staten Island as banal and benign, by the book's end your ideas will be forever changed." ? ReviewingTheEvidence.com Patricia Smith, editor of Staten Island Noir , has won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for her short story included in the anthology, ?When They Are Done with Us." “In a thrilling tilt-a-whirl of crime and drama... Smith has carefully chosen writers concerned with the true nature of the small suburban borough.” —Electric Literature Staten Island may be New York City's forgotten borough, but it ranks high up on the list of places known for organized crime. If that wasn't enough to boost its noir reputation, there are its haunted mansion, hate crimes, and Cropsey urban legend. Dark deeds will always find a home on this side of the Verrazano bridge, and they give Staten Island a character all its own. Staten Island Noir includes editor Patricia Smith's Robert L. Fish Memorial Award–winning short story, “When They Are Done with Us,” which was also selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2013. You'll find more tales by Bill Loehfelm, S.J. Rozan, Ted Anthony, Todd Craig, Ashley Dawson, Bruce DeSilva, Louisa Ermelino, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Michael Largo, Mike Penncavage, Linda Nieves-Powell, Shay Youngblood, and Eddie Joyce. “It's not enough for noir to be dark. It's got to be bad-ass. Its words, its decaying and horrible beauty have got to hit you like a spiked heel dragged from your guts to your gullet. It's got to twist the hot knife of passion in that soft space right below your belly while pumping bullets into your heart. It's got to make you bleed... Staten Island Noir features some dusky and drop-dead gorgeous gems (emphasis on the dead) that do just that.” —Grub Street Daily “[An] exceptionally strong anthology.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review Front Matter Introduction Part I: Broken Families The Marriage Privilege (West Roxbury) Night-Side (Quincy) Home Sweet Home (Route 128) Surrogate (Watertown) Part II: Criminal Minds Mushrooms (Dorchester) Lucky Penny (Beacon Hill) Blanche Cleans Up (excerpt) (Brookline) The Balance of the Day (Roxbury) Bait (excerpt) (South Boston) Part III: Voyeurs & Outsiders Townies (Merrimack River) Driving the Heart (Boston General Hospital) The 5:22 (Kendall Square) Infinite Jest (excerpt) (Brighton) At Night (Back Bay) Edited by three acclaimed genre authors, a second volume of classic short fiction reprints includes pieces by such leading writers as Joyce Carol Oates, Robert B. Parker and David Foster Wallace.