Los Angeles Noir is now a Los Angeles Times best-seller, Book Sense Notable Pick, and SCIBA Book Award Winner!

Susan Straight's story, "The Golden Gopher," won the 2008 Edgar Mystery Award; and two entries--Michael Connelly's "Mulholland Drive" and Robert Ferrigno's "The Hour When the Ship Comes In"--have been selected for inclusion in the prestigious Best American Mystery Stories 2008 anthology!

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Launched by 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.

Brand new stories by: Michael Connelly, Janet Fitch, Susan Straight, Hector Tobar, Patt Morrison, Emory Holmes II, Robert Ferrigno, Gary Phillips, Christopher Rice, Naomi Hirahara, Jim Pascoe, Scott Phillips, Diana Wagman, Lienna Silver, Brian Ascalon Roley, and Denise Hamilton.

Los Angeles is the birthplace of Noir. Maybe it's the overwhelming shadow cast by Hollywood, the blur of artifice and reality, the possibility of shucking off the past like last year's dress and reinventing yourself beyond your wildest dreams. Maybe it's the desperation that descends when the dream goes sour, the duplicity behind the stunning beauty, the rot of the jungle flowers, the rip tides that carry off the unwary. Writers like James Cain, Nathanael West and Raymond Chandler understood both theÊhope and the horror that Los Angeles inspired, and harnessed this duality to create their masterpieces.

With Los Angeles Noir, we've brought you the ethos of Chandler and Cain filtered through a 21st-century, multicultural lens. This is a literary travelogue from the Chinese mansions of San Marino to the day spas of Koreatown to the windy hills of Mullholland Drive, the baby gangsters of East Hollywood, the OG entrepreneur of Leimert Park, the old money of Beverly Hills, and the working classÊof Mar Vista. Los Angeles Noir brings you tales of crime and passion and betrayal from some of the most innovative and celebrated writers working today.

Denise Hamilton writes the Eve Diamond series. Her books have been shortlisted for the Edgar, Macavity, Anthony, and Willa Cather awards. The Los Angeles Times named Last Lullaby a "Best Book of 2004" and it was also a USA Today Summer Pick and a finalist for a Southern California Booksellers Association 2004 award. Her fourth Eve Diamond novel, Savage Garden, is an L.A. Times bestseller and was short-listed for the Southern California Booksellers Association for "Best Mystery of 2005."