- Paperback: 288 pages
- Published: 3/2/27
- IBSN: 9781636143316
- e-IBSN: 9781636143323
- Genre: Fiction
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Key West Noir
Key West enters the Akashic Noir Series arena with fourteen dazzling stories that give the rest of Weird Florida a run for its money
Now available for preorder. All preorders will ship on or before March 2, 2027.
Preorder on Barnes & Noble
Preorder on Amazon
Forthcoming: 3/2/27
Description
BRAND-NEW STORIES BY: Rosalind Brackenbury, Joanna Brady, Lucy Burdette, Meg Cabot, Hy Conrad, S.A. Cosby, Mike Dennis, Mark Hedden, Stephen Kitsakos, Michael Marrero, Jonathan Santlofer, Katrin Schumann, Alex Segura, and Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan.
From the introduction:
Key West. Close to perfect. Far from normal.At least that’s what the Monroe County Tourist Development Council would have you believe. Sunshine in abundance, tropical breezes, picturesque architecture, pink shrimp, Key Lime pie, and a mojito on every corner. No matter where you are, you’re never far from sultry waters—the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean buffer the 4.2-square-mile “key” or cayo, a corrupted Spanish word for very small island. In fact, Key West was referred to as Cayo Hueso, or Isle of Bones, because, as one historian tells it, the coral reefs looked like bones.
Yet beneath the radiant sunlight and clear cerulean skies lies a tenebrous layer of corruption, scandal, and murder. The island has produced a spicy, irreverent soup born out of a history of Cuban cigars, shipwrecking and sponging, Bahamian and Cuban emigres, Jewish merchants, and the mid-twentieth-century influx of gay men and lesbians who saw Key West as a safe harbor among the friendly fishing boats nestled into the bights. With its proximity to Cuba, only ninety miles away, and the powerful subculture of Miami, its closest mainland attraction to the northeast, Key West entices a collection of tourists and troublemakers. And when the sun goes down, there are things afoot on the streets of Old Town that would give the rest of Weird Florida a run for its money.
Table of Contents
Introduction
PART I: A QUESTION OF JUSTICE
“Captain Dave & Daughters” by Meg Cabot (Garrison Bight)
“Southernmost Point of the Heart” by S.A. Cosby (Southernmost Point)
“Foster the Great” by Hy Conrad (Key West Cemetery)
“Freya Swann” by Jonathan Santlofer (Old Town)
PART II: FORCES OF NATURE
“The Giving Tree” by Katrin Schumann (Truman Annex)
“Mysteries of the Unpredictable Sea” by Stephen Kitsakos (Conch Harbor Marina)
“Saint Lazarus” by Michael Marrero (Solares Hill)
PART III: WELCOME TO THE CONCH REPUBLIC
“The Last Place in America” by Rosalind Brackenbury (Casa Marina)
“The Ballad of Jolly and Sweetie” by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan (Fort Zachary Taylor)
“Chapman Lane, 1993” by Mark Hedden (Bahama Village)
“A Confederacy of Scoundrels” by Joanna Brady (Historic Seaport)
PART IV: LUST, ACTUALLY
“The Stirring” by Mike Dennis (Midtown)
“A Not-So-Trivial Murder” by Lucy Burdette (Mallory Square)
“Neon Dreams” by Alex Segura (Duval Street)
- Subjects: Forthcoming, Literary Fiction, Mysteries & Crime, New Releases, Noir Series
Book Details
Authors
CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN is a Singaporean novelist, journalist, and the inaugural George R.R. Martin Chair in Storytelling at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She is the author of the novel Sarong Party Girls and the memoir A Tiger in the Kitchen. Both books were international bestsellers. She is the coeditor of Anonymous Sex and editor of Singapore Noir. In 2024 she was named the chair of the Peyton Evans Artists Residency Alumni Network at the Studios of Key West. The National Arts Council of Singapore has awarded her multiple grants. Prior to writing novels, Tan was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, In Style, and the Baltimore Sun. She has been an artist in residence at Yaddo and Hawthornden Castle, among other places. Her latest work is Key West Noir.
STEPHEN KITSAKOS is a librettist and writer who divides his time between Key West and New York. Writing commissions include the NEA, American Opera Projects, Seattle Opera, Florida Arts Council, ABC-CLIO, and the Smithsonian. His recent operatic adaptations include Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns and Tomasz Jedrowski‘s Swimming in the Dark. In Key West he is the executive producer and host of the conversation series “Between Two Palms” for the Studios of Key West, which features prominent authors and playwrights, performers, and journalists. His latest work is Key West Noir.