San Diego Noir

Brand-new stories by: T. Jefferson Parker, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Martha Lawrence, Diane Clark & Astrid Bear, Debra Ginsberg, Morgan Hunt, Ken Kuhlken, Taffy Cannon, Don Winslow, Cameron Pierce Hughes, Lisa Brackmann, Gabriel R. Barillas, Gar Anthony Haywood, and Maria Lima. Launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir,Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. San Diego is home to miles of beaches, Balboa Park, a world-famous zoo, and some of the country's most expensive home and resort real estate. Yet the city also houses a few items that aren't actively promoted by the visitor's bureau: a number of the country's most corrupt politicians, border-related crimes, terrorists, and the occasional earthquakes. A noir feast! In the 50-plus years since Raymond Chandler set Playbackin Esmeralda, his name for La Jolla, the population has grown by more than a million, and crime has proliferated as well. San Diego of the past and the present offers the book's contributors a rich selection of settings, from the cross on Mount Soledad to the piers of Ocean Beach, and perpetrators and victims from the residents of its wealthiest enclaves to the inhabitants of its segregated barrios.

Table of Contents Introduction Part I: Working Stiffs “Vic Primeval” by T. Jefferson Parker (Kearny Mesa) “The Home Front” by Diane Clark & Astrid Bear (Sherman Heights) “Gold Shield Blues” by Jeffrey J. Mariotte (Mount Soledad) “Key Witness” by Martha C. Lawrence (La Jolla Cove)Part II: Neighborhood Watch “The New Girl” by Debra Ginsberg (Cortez Hill) “Instant Karma” by Taffy Cannon (Rancho Santa Fe) “The Angel’s Share” by Morgan Hunt (Hillcrest) “Homes” by Ken Kuhlken (Newport Avenue)Part III: Life’s A Beach “After Thirty” by Don Winslow (Pacific Beach) “Don’t Feed the Bums” by Lisa Brackmann (Ocean Beach) “Moving Black Objects” by Cameron Pierce Hughes (Mission Beach)Part IV: Boundaries & Borders “The Roads” by Gabriel R. Barillas (Del Mar) “Like Something Out of a Comic Book” by Gar Anthony Haywood (Convention Center) “The National City Reparation Society” by Luis Alberto Urrea (National City) “A Scent of Death” by Maria Lima (Gaslamp Quarter)