Dennis Lehane Edits BOSTON NOIR 2: The Classics

Dennis Lehane returns to coedit, with Cotton & Clarke, the sequel to the best-selling evergreen anthology Boston Noir. Classic reprints from: Linda Barnes, Jason Brown, Andre Dubus, Chuck Hogan, George Harrar, George V. Higgins, Dennis Lehane, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert B. Parker, David Ryan, Kenneth Abel, Barbara Neely, Hannah Tinti, and David Foster Wallace.

"14 superior selections in this 'classics' volume in Akashic's series of regional dark crime stories, the works of established writers that have stood the test of the time."
--Publishers Weekly

FROM THE INTRODUCTION by DENNIS LEHANE, JAIME CLARKE, AND MARY COTTON: "What is noir and what is not inhabits a gray area. Its definition is continually expanding from the previous generation’s agreed-upon notion that noir involves men in fedoras smoking cigarettes on street corners. Noir alludes to crime, sure, but it also evokes bleak elements, danger, tragedy, sleaze, all of which is best represented by its root French definition: black. We used this idea as our guide for this sequel to the best-selling Boston Noir anthology . . .

"The Commonwealth is an endless source of fascinating landscapes: the autumnal light spreading across the Charles River; the ice floes in the wintry Boston Harbor; a spring air tantalizing leaves in Harvard Yard; the salty taste of summer as sunbathers peer into the horizon, shielding their eyes from the glare, squinting into the middle distance. Beyond the postcard fabric, though, lies a community populated by broken families, criminal minds, voyeurs, and outsiders. They look like you and me. These are their stories."