LOS ANGELES NOIR
Debuted at #7 on the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association bestseller list for trade paperbacks for the week ended 4/22/07 and remained on either the LA Times Bestseller List and/or the Southern California Independent Booksellers Bestseller List for a total of 14 weeks.
Here are other highlights and milestones so far for LOS ANGELES NOIR:
- Was a BookSense Notable book
- Has gone into a second printing
- Won the "Best Mystery of the Year" award from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association for 2007
- Susan Straight's short story, The Golden Gopher, is a finalist for the prestigious Edgar Award 2008 for "Best Short Story"
- Two LA Noir short stories have been selected for inclusion in "Best Mystery Short Stories of 2008," which is overseen by Otto Penzler and edited by George Pelecanos. They are: "Mulholland Dive" by Michael Connelly and "The Hour When The Ship Comes In" by Robert Ferrigno.
- Naomi Hirahara's short story, "Number 19," was reprinted in the Los Angeles Weekly
- Will be published in Italy by Alet Editori in July 2008. Additionally, Michael Connelly's "Mulholland Drive" will be reprinted in an Italian magazine.
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with BROOKLYN NOIR. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. In LOS ANGELES NOIR, best-selling mystery writer Denise Hamilton serves up unfiltered noir from its homeland.
Los Angeles is the birthplace of noir. Maybe itis the overwhelming shadow cast by Hollywood, the blur of artifice and reality, the possibility of shucking off the past like last yearis dress and reinventing yourself beyond your wildest dreams. Maybe itis the desperation that descends when the dream goes sour, the duplicity behind the stunning beauty, the rot of the jungle flowers, the rip tides that carry off the unwary. Writers like James Cain, Nathanael West, and Raymond Chandler understood both the hope and the horror that Los Angeles inspired, and harnessed this duality to create their masterpieces.
LOS ANGELES NOIR brings the ethos of Chandler and Cain filtered through a twenty-first-century, multicultural lens. This is a literary travelogue from the Chinese mansions of San Marino to the day spas of Koreatown to the windy hills of Mulholland Drive, the baby gangsters of East Hollywood, the OG entrepreneur of Leimert Park, the old money of Beverly Hills, and the working class of Mar Vista. Los Angeles Noir offers tales of crime and passion and betrayal from some of the most innovative and celebrated writers working today.
Denise Hamilton (wearing a vintage Dorothy O'Hara dress) at the historic Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles at the annual SCIBA Awards (Southern California Independent Booksellers Association) holding up the "Best Mystery of the Year" Award for Los Angeles Noir. October 2007.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Police & Thieves
"Mulholland Drive" by Michael Connelly (Mulholland Drive)
"Number 19" by Naomi Hirahara (Koreatown)
"Dangerous Days" by Emory Holmes II (Leimert Park)
"Midnight in Silicon Valley" by Denise Hamilton (San Marino)
Part II: Hollywoodlandia
"The Method" by Janet Fitch (Los Feliz)
"Morocco Junction 90210" by Patt Morrison (Beverly Hills)
"Over Thirty" by Christopher Rice (West Hollywood)
"Once More, Lazarus" by Hector Tobar (East Hollywood)
Part III: East of La Brea
"The Golden Gopher" by Susan Straight (Downtown L.A.)
"The Kidnapper Bell" by Jim Pascoe (Los Angeles River)
"City of Commerce" by Neal Pollack (Commerce)
"Fish" by Lienna Silver (Fairfax District)
"Roger Crumbler Considered His Shave" by Gary Phillips (Mid-City)
Part IV: The Gold Coast
"The Girl Who Kissed Barnaby Jones" by Scott Phillips (Pacific Palisades)
"Kinship" by Brian Ascalon Roley (Mar Vista)
"The Hour When the Ship Comes In" by Robert Ferrigno (Belmont Shore)
"What You See" by Diana Wagman (Westchester)
LOS ANGELES NOIR
Trade Paperback, Akashic Books, March 2007, ISBN-13: 9781933354224