Dallas Noir

Texas’s ultimate noir town, where nasty surprises lurk around every turn, reveals its unseemly underbelly.

“This collection of crime stories takes its inspiration from the darker corners of everyday life in a city that many associate only with a historic assassination―or a glitzy TV show about oil fortunes and family feuds. All of the authors are Dallas natives and have written stories, both contemporary and historical, that run from the sublime to the ridiculous, from the factual to the fantastical.” ―CrimeReads, included in Kathleen Kent’s Dallas round-up

“All in all, the stories in Dallas Noir have an unsettling, slightly creepy presence that is not just appropriate but completely necessary for a collection of noir fiction. If you think Dallas is boring or white-bread―well, perhaps you haven’t gotten out much and seen the dark edges of Big D for yourself. And if you haven’t, maybe you don’t even want to.” ―Dallas Morning 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: Kathleen Kent, Ben Fountain, James Hime, Harry Hunsicker, Matt Bondurant, Merritt Tierce, Daniel J. Hale, Emma Rathbone, Jonathan Woods, Oscar C. Peña, Clay Reynolds, Lauren Davis, Fran Hillyer, Catherine Cuellar, David Haynes, and J. Suzanne Frank.

From the introduction by David Hale Smith:

"My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise . . . The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s perfect tune “Dallas” is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He’s just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest? Or is he on his way home, flying out of Love Field, reminiscing after seeing the woman who stepped on him when he was down?

"In a country with so many interesting cities, Dallas is often overlooked―except on November 22 every year. The heartbreaking anniversary keeps coming back around in a nightmare loop, for all of us. On that day in 1963, Dallas became American noir. A permanent black scar on its history that will never be erased, no matter how many happy business stories and hit television shows arise from here. In a stark ongoing counterweight to the JFK tragedy are those two iterations of the TV show. Dallas is not a TV show. It’s a real city . . . For the past forty years, my capacity to be surprised by it has not diminished one bit. I hope the stories in this collection will surprise you too."