St. Louis Noir
Edited by Scott Phillips
240 pages
The latest volume in Akashic Books series of books featuring writers penning gritty tales of murder and mayhem set in a particular city, St. Louis Noir features local writers, each of whom have crafted stories of ill-gotten deeds happening in locales we all know (Frontenac, east St. Louis, the Central West End, Sauget, Dogtown).
Editor Scott Phillips (Cottonwood,The Ice Harvest) has gathered a team of writers, some of whom have never been published before, to paint the town red with 13 works of grizzly crime fiction that is not for the Disney crowd.
Not afraid to get their hands dirty or shy away from contemporary issues, the writers behind have taken it to the streets, introducing readers to a roster of unseemly characters that find themselves in tense and desperate situations where the solutions are not whitewashed or squeaky-clean.
In addition to stories from Phillips, Calvin Wilson, John Lutz and Paul D. Marks, there are four pieces from poet laureate Michael Castro splattered among the pages, helping to frame the book as an anthology.
Throughout the compendium 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.
Not afraid to get their hands dirty or shy away from contemporary issues, the writers behind have taken it to the streets, introducing readers to a roster of unseemly characters that find themselves in tense and desperate situations where the solutions are not whitewashed or squeaky-clean.
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