This unique anthology of crime fiction features 15 original stories of “scandals, smugglers, and other sordid tales” by award-winning Moroccan authors (CrimeReads). At first glance, Marrakech may seem like an odd setting for noir fiction. Contemporary Moroccans call it The Joyful City—a place where locals are happy to joke about gossip and quick to forget stories of crime. But in Marrakech Noir, some of Morocco’s finest authors address old wrong that have been kept hidden behind the city’s ancient gates, and spin contemporary tales of poverty, grift, and violence in this global tourist destination. Marrakech Noir features brand-new stories by Fouad Laroui, Allal Bourqia, Abdelkader Benali, Mohamed Zouhair, Mohamed Achaari, Hanane Derkaoui, Fatiha Morchid, Mahi Binebine, Mohamed Nedali, Halima Zine El Abidine, My Seddik Rabbaj, Yassin Adnan, Karima Nadir, Taha Adnan, and Lahcen Bakour.

Facing rising demands for human rights and the rule of law, the Moroccan state fostered new mass media and cultivated more positive images of the police, once the symbol of state repression, reinventing the relationship between citizen and state for a new era. Jonathan Smolin examines popular culture and mass media to understand the changing nature of authoritarianism in Morocco over the past two decades. Using neglected Arabic sources including crime tabloids, television movies, true-crime journalism, and police advertising, Smolin sheds new light on politics and popular culture in the Middle East and North Africa.

"In this superior entry in Akashic's noir series, Meno offers nearly a century of Chicago crime fiction....Familiar bylines abound: Max Allan Collins, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Sherwood Anderson, Fredric Brown, Patricia Highsmith (with an excerpt from her novel The Price of Salt), Stewart M. Kaminsky, Sara Paretsky. Others may be less familiar to mystery specialists, but all turn in impressive performances." --Publishers Weekly, Starred review "Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, and Sandra Cisneros are not crime-fiction writers, and yet their Chicago certainly embodies the individual-crushing ethos endemic to noir. Meno also includes stories from writers who could easily have been overlooked (Percy Spurlark Parker, Hugh Holton) to ensure that diverse voices, and neighborhoods, are represented. Add in smart and essential choices from Fredric Brown, Sara Paretsky, and Stuart Kaminsky, and you have not an anthology not for crime-fiction purists, perhaps, but a thought-provoking document all the same." --Booklist "The fifteen short stories comprising Chicago Noir: The Classics, which are knowledgeably compiled and deftly edited by Joe Meno, are true gems of the noir literary tradition....Chicago Noir: The Classics is a consistently entertaining and will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to community library Mystery/Suspense collections." --Midwest Book Review "I've always enjoyed reading noir. Dark, ironic mysteries are a good read to me. Since this collection includes old classics as well as some new stories, I knew it would be good....I wasn't disappointed." --Journey of a Bookseller "Chicago Noir The Classics does everything anthologies and noir are supposed to, but this title achieves an unheralded goal that deserves notice....This is wonderful diversity, coming both unexpected and unhearalded. Anthologies are supposed to convey a sense of having covered the territory, Joe Meno has. Ethnically diverse city, ethnically diverse plots. Better, Chicago Noir The Classics showcases diversity as normal, everyday. This adds inescapable satisfaction to a sense of the editor's having covered the territory." --La Bloga "A worthy addition to the Akashic Books noir series." --Book Chase Although Los Angeles may be considered the most quintessentially "noir" American city, this volume reveals that pound-for-pound, Chicago has historically been able to stand up to any other metropolis in the noir arena. Classic reprints from: Harry Stephen Keeler, Sherwood Anderson, Max Allan Collins, Richard Wright, Nelson Algren, Fredric Brown, Patricia Highsmith, Barry Gifford, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Sara Paretsky, Percy Spurlark Parker, Sandra Cisneros, Hugh Holton, and Stuart Dybek. From the introduction by Joe Meno: "More corrupt than New York, less glamorous than LA, Chicago has more murders per capita than any other city its size. With its sleek skyscrapers bisecting the fading sky like an unspoken threat, Chicago is the closest metropolis to the mythical city of shadows as first described in the work of Chandler, Hammett, and Cain. Only in Chicago do instituted color lines offer generation after generation of poverty and violence, only in Chicago do the majority of governors do prison time, only in Chicago do the dead actually vote twice. "Chicago--more than the metropolis that gave the world Al Capone, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, the death of John Dillinger, the crimes of Leopold and Loeb, the horrors of John Wayne Gacy, the unprecedented institutional corruption of so many recent public officials, more than the birthplace of Raymond Chandler--is a city of darkness. This darkness is not an act of over-imagination. It's the unadulterated truth. It's a pointed though necessary reminder of the grave tragedies of the past and the failed possibilities of the present. Fifty years in the future, I hope these stories are read only as fiction, as somewhat distant fantasy. Here's hoping for some light."

“Offbeat, disturbing, and sometimes darkly comical” crime stories set in upstate New York by Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, S.J. Rozan, and more (Kirkus Reviews). Buffalo is still the second-largest metropolis in New York State, but in recent years its designation as the Queen City has been elbowed aside by a name that’s pure noir: The City of No Illusions. Presidents came from here—and in 1901 while visiting the Pan-American Exposition, a president was killed here by a man who checked into a hotel under a name that translates as Nobody. As Buffalo saw its prosperity wane, those on the outside could only see harsh winters and Rust Belt grit, chicken wings, and sports teams that came agonizingly close. This collection of crime stories is both a treasure for mystery fans and an atmospheric tour of this moody, gritty city. Featuring brand-new stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, Ed Park, Gary Earl Ross, Kim Chinquee, Christina Milletti, Tom Fontana, Dimitri Anastasopoulos, Lissa Marie Redmond, S.J. Rozan, John Wray, Brooke Costello, and Connie Porter. “From the Irish enclave of South Buffalo and a Niagara Street bar to a costly house in Nottingham Terrace and a once-grand Gothic structure in Elmwood Village, Buffalo’s past and present come to life . . . by authors who really know their city.” —Kirkus Reviews “Contributors include several mystery heavyweights. . . . Those curious about the criminal side of the second-biggest city in New York will be rewarded.” —Publishers Weekly “Each story represents a different neighborhood and cross-section of the city, and the resulting collection feels like a vivid, comprehensive tour of a distinctive place, administered by locals. There’s nothing quite like noir to shine a light, after all.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Original short stories by established local authors with flawless credentials . . . .Together, the stories cover cityscapes well-known to Buffalonians—to name a few, Elmwood Avenue, Niagara Street, Black Rock, North Park, Delaware Park, and Allentown. Local landmarks Peace Bridge and the Anchor Bar made it in there, too.” —Examiner “Superb.” —The Buffalo News

Georgia Center for the Book has chosen Atlanta Noir as one of 2018's Books All Georgians Should Read! Kenji Jasper's "A Moment of Clarity at the Waffle House" nominated for a 2018 Edgar Award for Best Short Story! "Atlanta has its share, maybe more than its share, of prosperity. But wealth is no safeguard against peril...Creepy as well as dark, grim in outlook...Hints of the supernatural may make these tales...appealing to lovers of ghost stories." --Kirkus Reviews "These stories, most of them by relative unknowns, offer plenty of human interest...All the tales have a Southern feel." --Publishers Weekly "Jones, author of Leaving Atlanta, returns to the South via Akashic's ever-growing city anthology series. The collection features stories from an impressive roster of talent including Jim Grimsley, Sheri Joseph, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms and David James Poissant. The 14 selections each take place in different Atlanta neighborhood." --Atlanta-Journal Constitution "Now comes Atlanta Noir, an anthology that masterfully blends a chorus of voices, both familiar and new, from every corner of Atlanta...The magic of Atlanta Noir is readily apparent, starting with the introduction Jones pens. It doesn’t rest solely upon the breadth of writers but on how their words, stories and references are so Atlanta--so very particular, so very familiar and so very readily, for those who know the city, nostalgic. And for those who don’t? The sense of place it captures inspires a desire to get to know Atlanta and its stories." --ArtsATL Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. This much-anticipated and long-overdue installment in Akashic's Noir Series reveals many sides of Atlanta known only to its residents. Brand-new stories by: Tananarive Due, Kenji Jasper, Tayari Jones, Dallas Hudgens, Jim Grimsley, Brandon Massey, Jennifer Harlow, Sheri Joseph, Alesia Parker, Gillian Royes, Anthony Grooms, John Holman, Daniel Black, and David James Poissant. From the introduction by Tayari Jones: Atlanta itself is a crime scene. After all, Georgia was founded as a de facto penal colony and in 1864, Sherman burned the city to the ground. We might argue about whether the arson was the crime or the response to the crime, but this is indisputable: Atlanta is a city sewn from the ashes and everything that grows here is at once fertilized and corrupted by the past... These stories do not necessarily conform to the traditional expectations of noir...However, they all share the quality of exposing the rot underneath the scent of magnolia and pine. Noir, in my opinion, is more a question of tone than content. The moral universe of the story is as significant as the physical space. Noir is a realm where the good guys seldom win; perhaps they hardly exist at all. Few bad deeds go unrewarded, and good intentions are not the road to hell, but are hell itself...Welcome to Atlanta Noir. Come sit on the veranda, or the terrace of a high-rise condo. Pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, and fortify it with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up. Enjoy these stories, and watch your back.

“To travel through the 19 works of poetry and prose in this remarkable anthology is to experience Trinidad and Tobago through a kaleidoscopic lens.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review Two of Trinidad’s top writers masterfully curate this literary retrospective of the nation’s best writing over the past century from authors who were largely part of the literary wave that swept in with Trinidadian Independence in 1962. Though Trinidad Noir: The Classics encompasses a variety of moods and themes, it winds up capturing the uniquely Trinidadian character. Influenced by the waning days of the colonial world—an era rife with crime, violence, enslavement, and indentureship—the selections highlight the often heroic individuals of the underclass. In this anthology, you’ll find reprints of classic stories and poems by C.L.R. James, Derek Walcott, Samuel Selvon, Eric Roach, V.S. Naipaul, Harold Sonny Ladoo, Michael Anthony, Willi Chen, Earl Lovelace, Robert Antoni, Elizabeth Nunez, Ismith Khan, Lawrence Scott, Wayne Brown, Jennifer Rahim, Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, Sharon Millar, Barbara Jenkins, and Shani Mootoo. “Lovelace and Antoni offer a ‘subversive’ take on island culture . . . Whether history repeats itself or progress is stalled by people’s infinite capacity to get in their own ways, these 19 reprinted tales offer a bittersweet perspective on the cussedness of human nature.” —Kirkus Reviews “Holds strong appeal for fans of noir and literary writing.” —Library Journal

“A stellar cast of award-winning Nigerian authors . . . a must-read for crime lovers looking for something different.”—Brittle Paper In Akashic Books’s acclaimed series of original noir anthologies, each book comprises all new stories set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Now, West Africa enters the Noir Series arena, meticulously edited by one of Nigeria’s best-known authors. In Lagos Noir, the stories are set in “a city of more than 21 million and an amazing amalgam of wealth, poverty, corruption, humor, bravery, and tragedy. Abani and a dozen other contributors tell stories that are both unique to Lagos and universal in their humanity . . . This entry stands as one of the strongest recent additions to Akashic’s popular noir series” (Publishers Weekly, starred review, pick of the week). The anthology includes stories by Chris Abani, Nnedi Okorafor, E.C. Osondu, Jude Dibia, Chika Unigwe, A. Igoni Barrett, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Adebola Rayo, Onyinye Ihezukwu, Uche Okonkwo, Wale Lawal, ’Pemi Aguda, and Leye Adenle. “The beauty of this book, which contains 13 stories from Nigerian writers, is that it serves as a travelogue, too.”—Bloomberg, “The Darkest Summer Reading List for Those Bright, Beachy Days” “With writers like Igoni Barrett, Leye Adenle, and E.C. Osondu contributing, Lagos Noir offers wildly different perspectives on both the city itself and the state of noir fiction. This book is almost like a world in itself, one that you’ll want to dive back into and get lost in again and again.”—CrimeReads, “One of the 10 Best Crime Anthologies of 2018”