Nothing to snort at, this ambitious anthology of jaw-grinding criminal behavior is masterfully curated by acclaimed authors Phillips and Tervalon. Cocaine, that most troubling and fascinating of substances is the subject, the subtext, the whys and whereofs in Cocaine Chronicles, a collection of original short stories that are funny and harrowing, sad and scary, but at all times riveting. Cocaine Chronicles contains tough tales by a cross-section of today's most thought-provoking writers.

Contributors: Susan Straight, Lee Child, Ken Bruen, Laura Lippman, Nina Revoyr, Jerry Stahl, Bill Moody, Emory Holmes II, James Brown, Gary Phillips, Jervey Tervalon, Kerry West, Donnell Alexander, Deborah Vankin, Robert Ward, Manuel Ramos, and Detrice Jones.

Gary Phillips writes for several mediums from screenplays to comic books, and remembers vividly the days of disco and the fever that coke then crack unleashed. He is the author of several crime-fiction novels, including Bangers, and lives in Los Angeles.

Jervey Tervalon is the author of All the Trouble You Need, Understand This (winner of the 1994 New Voices Award from the Quality Paperback Book Club), and the acclaimed Los Angeles Times bestseller Dead Above Ground. In 2001, he received the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles National Literacy Award for Excellence in Multicultural Literature. He is also an award-winning poet, screenwriter, and dramatist. Currently, he's the writer-in-residence at Pitzer College and is a California Arts Council Fellow. Jervey was born in New Orleans, raised in Los Angeles, and now lives in Altadena, California, with his wife and two daughters.