Los Angeles Noir 2, edited by Denise Hamilton (Akashic Books)

Orange County Noir, edited by Gary Phillips (Akashic Books)

Seven wonderful mystery writers will be here to present two new entrants in the very popular Akashic Noir anthology series: Los Angeles Noir 2 and Orange County Noir.  Editors Denise Hamilton and Gary Phillips and contributors Susan Straight, Robert S. Levinson, Robert Ward, Jervey Tervalon, and Naomi Hirahara will read from their work.

Denise Hamilton writes the Eve Diamond series and is editor of Los Angeles Noir, an anthology of new writing that spent two months on the best-seller lists, won the Edgar Award for Best Short Story, and won the Southern California Independent Booksellers’ award for Best Mystery of the Year. Her latest novel, Los Angeles Times best seller The Last Embrace, has been compared to James Ellroy and Raymond Chandler.

Gary Phillips writes stories of chicanery and misadventure in various formats, including novels and short stories. He has contributed stories to several volumes in the Akashic Noir Series, including Los Angeles Noir, Dublin Noir, and Phoenix Noir. He recently published Freedom’s Fight, a novel set in World War II.

Susan Straight is a native of Riverside, California, just over the Orange County border. She has published six novels, including Highwire Moon, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and A Million Nightingales, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her new novel, One Candle, will be published in 2010. Her short story “The Golden Gopher,” from Los Angeles Noir, won an Edgar Award in 2008.

Robert S. Levinson is the author of the novels The Traitor in Us All, In the Key of Death, Where the Lies Begin, and Ask a Dead Man, as well as the Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner series of mystery-thrillers, which to date consist of The Elvis and Marilyn Affair, The James Dean Affair, The John Lennon Affair, and Hot Paint: The Andy Warhol Affair. The Derringer Award–winner’s short stories appear often in the Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock mystery magazines.

Robert Ward’s 2006 novel Four Kinds of Rain was nominated for a Hammett Prize. He is a former writer-producer on TV shows New York Undercover, Hill Street Blues, and Miami Vice. His latest novel, Total Immunity, was published in 2009 by Harcourt.

Jervey Tervalon lives in Altadena, California, with his two daughters. He teaches creative writing at the University of Southern California and is currently revising the manuscript of Hope Found Chauncey, a sequel of sorts to his best-selling novel Understand This. His essay “The Slow Death of a Chocolate City,” originally written for the LA Weekly, won a Los Angeles Press Club Award in 2008.

Naomi Hirahara, born and raised in Southern California, won an Edgar Award for her third mystery in the Mas Arai series, Snakeskin Shamisen. She writes crime fiction and also novels for younger readers; her short story “Number 19” was published in the original Los Angeles Noir. She contributes a mystery serial for an English-language weekly in Japan and regularly leads writing workshops. Her fourth Mas Arai mystery, Blood Hina, is being published in 2010.

Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics (Paperback)

By Denise Hamilton (Editor)

$15.95

ISBN-13: 9781936070022
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Akashic Books, 04/01/2010

From Hollywood starlets to downtown taxi dancers, and from Central Avenue
speakeasies to clapboard Venice Beach shacks to Depression-era hobos riding the
rails, this volume brings you the masters of the genre penning tales of love,
lust, and loss in the City of Angels.

Includes classic stories by: Raymond Chandler, Paul Cain, James Ellroy, Leigh
Brackett, James M. Cain, Chester Himes, Ross MacDonald, Walter Mosley, Naomi
Hirahara, Margaret Millar, Joseph Hansen, William Campbell Gault, Jervey
Tervalon, Kate Braverman, and Yxta Maya Murray.

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Orange County Noir (Paperback)

By Gary Phillips (Editor), T. Jefferson Parker (Foreword by)

$15.95

ISBN-13: 9781936070039
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Akashic Books, 04/01/2010

Orange County, California, brings to mind the endless summer of sand and surf, McMansion housing tracts, a conservative stronghold, and tony shopping centers. It's a place where pilates classes are run like boot camps, real estate values are discussed at your weekly colonic, and ice cream parlors on Main Street, USA, exist side-by-side with pho shops and taquerias. Orange County Noir pulls back the veil to reveal what lurks behind the curtain.

Features brand-new stories by: Susan Straight, Robert S. Levinson, Rob Roberge, Nathan Walpow, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Dan Duling, Mary Castillo, Lawrence Maddox, Dick Lochte, Robert Ward, Gary Phillips, Gordon McAlpine, Martin J. Smith, and Patricia McFall.

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