Miami Noir (Akashic Noir) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933354135 ISBN 13: 9781933354132

Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd., 2006

Synopsis

"For different reasons these stories cultivate a little something special, a radiance, a humanity, even a grace, In the midst of the noir gloom, and thereby set themselves apart. Variety, familiarity, mood and tone, and the occasional gem of a story make Miami Noir a collection to savor."
--Miami Herald

"For such a sun-stoked place. Miami sure is shady. Shadowy, too. Even at highest noon. Maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's the humidity. And maybe, just maybe, it's our destiny...With echoes of Charles Willeford's Hoke Mosely series, the Miami books of Elmore Leonard, the quirk of Carl Hiaasen, who never met a shady character he didn't wanna write, and Edna Buchanan, who seems to know all the shadows, this batch of dirty deep South Florida fiction might just send you packing...your own heat."
--Sun Post

"Sixteen new, diverse and highly enter­taining mystery stories pack Akashic's latest city-by-city tour of modem noir...This vol­ume is as solid as the coral rock lying beneath the Miami streets."
--Publishers Weekly

"This well-chosen short story collection isn't Just a thoughtful compilation of work by some of South Florida's best and upcoming writers. Each Miami Noir story also is a window on a different part or Miami-Dade and its melting pot of cultures."
--Sun Sentinel

"Murder is nothing new in Miami--or any other big city, for that matter. But seldom has it been so entertaining as it is in the 16 short stories Included in Miami Noir."
--Palm Beach Daily News

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: James W. Hall, Barbara Parker, John Dufresne, Paul Levine, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera, Tom Corcoran, Christine Kling, George Tucker, Kevin Allen, Anthony Dale Gagliano, David Beaty, Vicki Hendricks, John Bond, Preston L. Allen, Lynne Barrett, Jeffrey Wehr.

From the introduction by Les Standiford:

"The truth is that Miami, though naturally lovely, is a frontier town, perched on the border between the known and the rarely before experienced. The poet Richard Hugo once said that the natural place for the writer was on the edge, and 'edge' might well be the definitive word when it comes to this city...We are not only on the edge of the continent, we are to this country what New York was in Ellis Island's heyday, what the West Coast was in the middle of the twentieth century. This is where the new arrivals debark these days, and it is no mistake that during the last decade of the last century, commentators as diverse as Joan Didion, David Rieff, and T.D. Allman devoted entire volumes to Miami's role as the harbinger for America's future...But for now, the novel of crime and punishment is the perfect vehicle to convey the spirit and the timbre of this brawling place to a wider world."

About this title

About the Author

Les Standiford is the author of ten novels, including the John Deal series, and two works of nonfiction, including Last Train to Paradise. He wrote a chapter of Naked Came the Manatee, and edited The Putt at the End of the World, a collective novel of golf.

From Publishers Weekly

Sixteen new, diverse and highly entertaining mystery stories pack Akashic's latest city-by-city tour of modern noir, spotlighting the "Miami School," which has sprung to dynamic life in the wake of the legendary Charles Willeford and his signature novel Miami Blues. This anthology prowls through South Beach and across Alligator Alley, hitting every demographic, from long-term Cuban émigrés to Haitian boat people and the garden variety psychopathic redneck. In James W. Hall's "Ride Along," a college professor with an interest in crime writing goes slumming with a thug called Jumpy—"6'4", skinny as a greyhound, pasty-skinned, all knuckles and Adam's apple"—with unexpected results. Vicki Hendricks does a neat deconstruction of classic noir with "Boozanne, Lemme Be," wherein the 4'10" protagonist—"too short for normal chicks, too tall for a dwarf"—lives undetected under a house until he connects with the titular Boozanne and dives still further into ruin. This volume is as solid as the coral rock lying beneath the Miami streets. (Nov.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1933354135
• ISBN 13: 9781933354132
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 355
• Editor: Standiford Les