St. Louis Noir [Paperback]

Featuring a baker's dozen of original stories, plus one 'poetic interlude,' this new entry in Akashic's globetrotting anthology series explores, as editor Phillips, author ofThe Ice Harvest, tells us in his introduction, the 'collision of high and low' that makes St. Louis so interesting to crime writers...The stories here are uniformly strong. Regular readers of the Noir series (since its inception in 2004, there have been about 75 installments) know what to expect: tightly written, tightly plotted, mostly character-driven stories of murder and mayhem, death and despair, shadow and shock.
--Booklist

'Phillips lends his own talents as well, bringing the total body count to 13 works of fatalist fiction as well as a poetic interlude featuring Poet Laureate Michael Castro. Joining him as accessories are St. Louis Post-Dispatch film critic Calvin Wilson; LaVelle Wilkins-Chinn, a fiction writer whom Phillips himself taught; and writers John Lutz, Paul D. Marks, Colleen J. McElroy, Jason Makansi, S.L. Coney, Laua Benedict, Umar Lee, Chris Barsanti, Linda Smith and Jedidiah Ayres.
--St. Louis Newspaper

Phillips has shrewdly captured the fundamental elements of noir, transforming St. Louis into a gruesome world that is neither black or white, but quintessentially gray.
—Alive Magazine

Joining Seattle, Memphis, Phoenix, and other noir outposts, St. Louis gets a turn to show its dark side in Phillips' collection of 13 dark tales and a poetic interlude...[A] spirited, black-hearted collection.
--Kirkus Reviews

Editor Scott Phillips has compiled 13 tales of grim homicidal happenings (plus one poetic interlude) set in the streets of the St. Louis area.
—St. Louis Post- Dispatch

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 withBrooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood ol�