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4.5 

Boston Noir 2: The Classics (Akashic Noir)

By Dennis Lehane & Mary Cotton &
Boston Noir 2: The Classics (Akashic Noir) by Dennis Lehane & Mary Cotton &  digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

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.

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2 Reviews

4.5
“A really good collection of "classic" Boston Noir short stories, with entries from folks like Robert Parker (Spenser and Hawk clean up a mess), Dennis Lehane (also one of the editors) and even Joyce Carol Oates (a fascinating entry set in the late 1800s). Standout stories include Andre Dubos' Townies, Chuck Hogan's The Marriage Privlege and even a wonderfully weird (and suddenly violent) David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest excerpt. Now I have to try that one!”

Mary Cotton

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 Magazine. She is co-owner of Newtonville Books, an independent bookstore in Boston.

Jaime Clarke

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 coeditor of No Near Exit: Writers Select Their Favorite Work from Post Road Magazine. He is a founding editor of the literary magazine Post Road and has taught creative writing at UMASS-Boston and Emerson College. He is co-owner of Newtonville Books, an independent bookstore in Boston.

Kenneth Abel

Kenneth Abel is the author of the highly praised Bait and The Blue Wall. Down in the Flood is his third in the critically acclaimed Danny Chaisson thriller series; previous titles include Cold Steel Rain and The Burying Field. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Other books by Kenneth Abel

George Harrar

George Harrar is the author of the literary mystery The Spinning Man, described by the New York Times as “elegant and unnerving.” Among his dozen published short stories, “The 5:22” won the Carson McCullers Prize and was selected for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 1999. In 2013, Other Press will publish his psychological drama Reunion at Red Paint Bay. Harrar lives west of Boston with his wife, Linda, a documentary filmmaker.

George V. Higgins

George V. Higgins (1939–1999) was the author of more than twenty novels, including the best sellers The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Cogan’s Trade, The Rat on Fire, and The Digger’s Game. He was a reporter for the Providence Journal and the Associated Press before obtaining a law degree from Boston College Law School in 1967. He was assistant attorney general and then an assistant US attorney in Boston from 1969 to 1973. He later taught creative writing at Boston University.

Chuck Hogan

Chuck Hogan is the New York Times best-selling author of several acclaimed novels, including Devils in Exile and Prince of Thieves, which was awarded the Hammett Prize and was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film The Town. His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times and ESPN The Magazine, and his short fiction has twice been anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories. He lives outside Boston with his family.

Barbara Neely

Barbara Neely writes novels, short stories, and plays wherever she can. Her first novel in the Blanche White series won three of the four major mystery awards for best first novel. Neely’s short stories have appeared in anthologies, magazines, university texts, and journals. She is currently working on a stand-alone novel and a play.

Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates, editor of New Jersey Noir (2011), is the author most recently of the story collection The Corn Maiden (Mysterious Press) and the novel Mudwoman (Ecco/ HarperCollins). Her earliest fascination with Boston and its historic environs sprang from her experience as a nineteen year-old undergraduate in the Harvard Summer School, living in an antiquated residence in the Harvard Yard during a particularly hot and torpid summer some decades ago.

David Ryan

David Ryan’s fiction has appeared in BOMB, NERVE, Mississippi Review, Denver Quarterly, Cimarron Review, Tin House, Alaska Quarterly Review, New Orleans Review, Hobart, 5_Trope, and the W. W. Norton anthology Flash Fiction Forward, among others. He is a recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and a recent arts grant from the state of Connecticut.

Hannah Tinti

Hannah Tinti grew up in Salem, Massachusetts. She is the author of a story collection, Animal Crackers (which includes “Home Sweet Home”), and a novel, The Good Thief. She is also cofounder and editor in chief of One Story magazine. Recently, she joined the National Public Radio program Selected Shorts, as their literary commentator.

David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) wrote the novels The Pale King, Infinite Jest, and The Broom of the System, as well as the story collections Oblivion, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and Girl with Curious Hair. His nonfiction includes Consider the Lobster, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, Everything and More, and This Is Water.

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