New York City Noir

by Tim McLoughlin

  Louisa Ermelino is the reviews director at Publishers Weekly. She has worked at People, Time, and Instyle, and written three novels: Joey Dee Gets Wise, The Black Madonna, and The Sisters Mallone. Her family summered in Staten Island and it is the home of her husband's family and "the site of a large part of our courtship."

  Maggie Estep has published six books and is working on her seventh, Alice Fantastic, which came to be when Robert Knightly asked her to write something for Queens Noir. Her favorite parts of Queens are the Kissena Velodrome, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Fort Tilden in Rockaway.

  Belinda Farley resides in Harlem, not Queens, and is currently at work on a novel.

  Jim Fusilli is the author of the award-winning Terry Orr series, which includes Hard, Hard City, winner of the Gumshoe Award for Best Novel of 2004, as well as Closing Time, A Well-Known Secret, and Tribeca Blues. He also writes for the Wall Street Journal and is a contributor to National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

  Nelson George is a noted author and filmmaker who has resided in Brooklyn all his forty-six years. His most recent nonfiction work is Post-Soul Nation (Viking), and he is the executive producer of two recent TV projects: The "N" Word and Everyday People, a fictional film made for HBO.

  Alan Gordon is the author of the Fools' Guild Mysteries, including the forthcoming novel The Moneylender of Toulouse and, most recently, The Lark's Lament. He has been a resident of Queens' second oldest co-op since 1987, and is a defender of the borough's alleged miscreants as a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society. Gordon is the father of one genuine Queensian, and has been a Little League coach for six years, which has taught him all he needs to know about hard-boiled types.

  Luciano Guerriero is the author of one novel, a noir thriller entitled The Spin, and has been a resident of Brooklyn or Manhattan for twenty-three years. While writing plays, screenplays, short stories, and poetry during that time, he has also acted in or directed sixty-five plays and acted in twenty Hollywood and independent films.

  Joseph Guglielmelli grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens. He cultivated his love of mysteries by reading golden age classics found while browsing in tiny bookstores in the shadow of the elevated tracks of the 7 train. For the past thirteen years, Joe has been co-owner of The Black Orchid Bookshop, which was the 2006 recipient of the Raven Award given by Mystery Writers of America.

  Denis Hamill writes a column about Queens for the New York Daily News and has written ten novels, including, Fork in the Road, recently purchased by Alexander Payne's company for a feature film from Fox Searchlight. He lives in Queens.

  Pete Hamill is for many the living embodiment of New York City. In his writing for the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the New Yorker, and Newsday, he has brought the city to life for millions of readers. He is the author of many best-selling books, including novels Forever and Snow in August, as well the memoir A Drinking Life. He lives in New York City.

  Robert J. Hughes's novel Late and Soon was published in late 2005, and his next, Seven Sisters, will be out soon. He is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he writes on the arts, philanthropy, and publishing. He lives in Manhattan now, but spent many merry hours as a youth raising a perfectly law-abiding ruckus with friends in the parish of St. Nicholas of Tolentine.

  Marlon James was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1970. He graduated from the University of the West Indies in 1991 with a degree in literature. His debut novel, John Crow's Devil, a New York Times Editors' Choice, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. James teaches creative writing and literature at Macalester College, in St. Paul, MN.

  Kenji Jasper was born and raised in the nation's capital and currently lives in Brooklyn. He is a regular contributor to National Public Radio's Morning Edition and has written articles for Savoy, Essence, VIBE, the Village Voice, the Charlotte Observer, and Africana.com. He is the author of three novels, Dark, Dakota Grand, and the forthcoming Seeking Salamanca Mitchell.

  Eddie Joyce was born and raised on Staten Island. He is working on his first novel. Before he started writing, he was a criminal defense attorney in Manhattan for ten years. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three daughters.

  Norman Kelley is the author of the "noir soul" Nina Halligan mystery series, which includes Black Heat, The Big Mango, and A Phat Death. He is also the author of Head Negro in Charge Syndrome, forthcoming (Nation Books,) and he edited and contributed to R&B (Rhythm and Business): The Political Economy of Black Music (Akashic, 2002). He currently resides in Brooklyn.

  Patricia King is the author of four books on business subjects, including Never Work for a Jerk. Her forthcoming book—The Monster in the Corner Office—will be published in 2008.

  Binnie Kirshenbaum is the author of two story collections, Married Life and History on a Personal Note, and six novels: On Mermaid Avenue, A Disturbance in One Place, Pure Poetry, Hester Among the Ruins, An Almost Perfect Moment, and The Scenic Route. She is a professor and currently serving as chair at Columbia University's MFA program. She taught at Staten Island's Wagner College twenty years ago.

  Sandra Kitt's novel The Color of Love, released in 1995, was optioned by HBO and Lifetime. She has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award in Fiction. A native of New York, her artwork is displayed in the African American Museum of Art in Los Angeles. She lives in Riverdale, the Bronx.

  Robert Knightly moved to Jackson Heights in 1995 and works as a Legal Aid criminal defense lawyer in the Queens courts. As a teenager, he dug graves one summer in First Calvary Cemetery in Blissville, where he set his story for this volume. His short story "Take the Man's Pay," from Akashic's Manhattan Noir, was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2007. As an NYPD officer and sergeant he patrolled Brooklyn and Manhattan for twenty years.

  Rita Lakin grew up in the East Bronx on Elder Avenue. She attended Hunter College on the Bronx campus and then worked in Los Angeles as a writer/producer in television for twenty-five years. Now she is happily writing mysteries about a group of geriatric lady P.I.'s, including Getting Old Is Murder, Getting Old Is the Best Revenge, and Getting Old Is Criminal.

  Michael Largo has published three novels and four books of nonfiction. He won the Bram Stoker Award for Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die. He was born on Staten Island and grew up a few blocks away from where Willie Sutton once lived. He attended the College of Staten Island and, among other things, once owned the St. Marks Bar & Grill in Manhattan.

  Miles Marshall Lewis moved northeast to Co-op City from Highbridge at the age of four. In the 1990s he worked as an editor at Vibe and XXL magazines, interviewing Afrika Bambaataa, Nas, Rakim, and many others. Author of Scars of the Soul Are Why Kids Wear Bandages When They Don't Have Bruises and There's a Riot Goin' On, Lewis is also founder of Bronx Biannual literary journal. He lives in Paris, France.

  Bill Loehfelm is the author of three novels, most recently The Devil She Knows, as well as Fresh Kills, winner of the first Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, and Bloodroot. All three novels are set in Loehfelm's home borough of Staten Island. He grew up in Eltingville, and is a graduate of Monsignor Farrell High School. He currently lives in New Orleans' Garden District with his wife, A.C. Lambeth, a writer and yoga instructor, and their two dogs.

  Glenville Lovell has published four novels: Fire in the Canes, Song of Night, Too Beautiful to Die, and Love and Death in Brooklyn. His stories have appeared in Conjunctions, Shades of Black, Wanderlust: Erotic Travel Tales, and Hardboiled Brooklyn. For more information, visit www.glenvillelovell.com

  John Lutz has long enjoyed setting suspense novels in his favorite city, New York, one of which was made into the film Single White Female. His latest book is Fear the Night, set in . . . New York.

  Lou Manfredo was born and raised in Brooklyn. He is a former New York City public school teacher and legal investigator. The father of one daughter, Nicole, he currently lives in New Jersey with his wife, Joanne, an
d their long-haired dachshund. Mr. Manfredo recently completed his first novel.

  Adam Mansbach, a resident of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, currently on sabbatical in Berkeley, California, is the author of two novels, Shackling Water and the forthcoming Angry Black White Boy, and the poetry collection genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights. The former editor of the hip hop journal Elementary, he serves as an Artistic Consultant to Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies and is a teacher for Youth Speaks.

  Liz Martínez has lived in Woodside, Queens, for the past fifteen years. She is currently collaborating on a mystery anthology with fellow award-winning Mexican-American writer Sarah Cortez. "Lights Out for Frankie" was inspired by an organized retail crime case solved by legendary police detectives Eric Hernando and Sergeant Louie Torres of the Holmdel, New Jersey police department

  Tim McLoughlin was born and raised in Brooklyn, where he still resides. His debut novel, Heart of the Old Country (Akashic, 2001), was a selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program and has been optioned for a film. It was also published last year in Great Britain and in Italy, where it won the 2003 Premio Penne award. He is completing his second novel.

  Maan Meyers (Annette and Martin Meyers) have written six books and multiple short stories in the Dutchman series of historical mysteries set in New York in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

  Martin Meyers grew up on Madison Street, a couple of blocks from the East River where the Manhattan Bridge hovers—the Lower East Side then, Chinatown now. He currently lives on the Upper West Side with his wife, author Annette Meyers. In 1975, when he was still an actor, he wrote the first book in his Patrick Hardy P.I. series, Kiss and Kill.

  Ellen Miller is the author of the critically acclaimed best-seller Like Being Killed. Her fiction and essays have appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies, most recently Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction from the Edge. She has taught creative writing at New York University, the New School, and the women's unit of a federal prison. She lives in New York City and is at work on her second novel.

  Thomas Morrissey is an army brat who grew up in exotic locations like Okinawa, Heidelberg, and Staten Island. He began writing when, as a child, he found great pleasure playing with his mother's Sears portable typewriter. His first novel, Faustus Resurrectus, is on the way.

  Arthur Nersesian is the author of six novels, including Suicide Casanova, Chinese Takeout, Unlubricated, and the cult classic best seller The Fuck-Up. The former managing editor of the Portable Lower East Side, he currently lives in New York City.

  Linda Nieves-Powell was selected as one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business magazine. She is the author of the novel Free Style, and the writer and director of the award-winning plays Yo Soy Latina! and Jose Can Speak, and is the creator, cowriter, director, and producer of the comedic web series Happy Cancer Chick. She moved to Staten Island when she was thirteen, and still lives there today.

  Chris Niles was born in New Zealand. In the last fifteen years she has lived in Australia, England, and Hungary. She now lives in Brooklyn and does not intend to move for a very long time. She is also the author of Hell's Kitchen (Akashic, 2001), as well as a series of crime mysteries featuring radio reporter Sam Ridley: Spike It, Run Time, and Crossing Live.

  Sidney Offit is a novelist, author of books for young readers, teacher, member of the board of the PEN American Center, president of the Authors Guild Foundation, and curator of the George Polk Journalism Awards that originate from Long Island University's Brooklyn center. During the mid-fifties he covered the Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and that other team from New York for Baseball Magazine. His most recent book is Memoir of the Bookie's Son.

  Michael Penncavage won a 2008 Derringer Award for his story "The Cost of Doing Business." He has been an associate editor for Space and Time magazine, as well as editor of the horror/suspense anthology Tales from a Darker State. He has been published in approximately eighty magazines and anthologies, and is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the Horror Writers of America, and the Garden State Horror Writers.

  Patrick W. Picciarelli, a former lieutenant with the NYPD, is the author of Mala Femina: A Woman's Life as the Daughter of a Don, among other crime-related books. His affection for the Bronx goes way back, and he fondly recalls his uncles telling him that there is no Mafia as they sipped red wine in Dominic's on Arthur Avenue, smoked Italian stinkers, and lamented the passing of Fat Tony Boombatz, who accidentally suffocated in the trunk of a Cadillac.

  Neal Pollack is the author of three books: the cult classic The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, Beneath the Axis of Evil, and the rock 'n' roll novel Never Mind the Pollacks. A regular contributor to Vanity Fair, GQ, and many other magazines, Pollack lives in Austin, Texas.

  Abraham Rodriguez Jr. was born and raised in the South Bronx. His first book, The Boy without a Flag, was a 1993 New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His novel Spidertown won a 1995 American Book Award and was optioned by Columbia Pictures. His latest novel, The Buddha Book, was published by Picador in 2001. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany, where he is immersed in the local music scene.

  S.J. Rozan is the author of thirteen novels and three dozen short stories. She has won Edgar, Shamus, Anthony, Nero, and Macavity awards, and was a recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award. She has served on the boards of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and as president of Private Eye Writers of America. Her latest book is Ghost Hero. Rozan set a large portion of her book Absent Friends on Staten Island.

  Justin Scott was born on West 76th Street between Riverside and West End, grew up in a small town, and came back to Manhattan to write mysteries, thrillers, and the occasional short story in Midtown, the Upper West Side, the Village, and Chelsea. Twice nominated for Edgar Awards, his New York stories include Many Happy Returns, Treasure for Treasure, Normandie Triangle, and Rampage.

  Stephen Solomita is the author of sixteen novels. He was born and raised in Bayside, Queens, not far from College Point, the setting for "Crazy Jill Saves the Slinky."

  Patricia Smith is the author of six acclaimed poetry volumes, including Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah; Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award; and Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection. She is a professor at the College of Staten Island and serves on the faculties of the Stonecoast and Sierra Nevada College low-residency MFA programs.

  C.J. Sullivan grew up in the Bronx and is currently a reporter for the New York Post. Along with writing, the loves of his life are his two children, Luisa Marie and Olivia Kathleen Sullivan.

  Kim Sykes is an actress and writer who lives in New York City. She frequently works at Silvercup Studios.

  Steven Torres was born and raised in the Bronx. A graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Hunter College, and the City University of New York Graduate Center, he is also the author of the Precinct Puerto Rico series of novels for St. Martin's Press. The Concrete Maze is his fifth novel and the first he has set in New York City. For more information, visit www.steventorres.com.

  Joseph Wallace was born in Brooklyn, but his favorite place in New York City was the Bronx Zoo, especially on cold winter days when the grounds were deserted, the animals were alert and hungry, and something unexpected always seemed about to happen. He is the author of many nonfiction books and magazine articles (including several about the zoo), and is a contributor to the crime anthologies Hard-Boiled Brooklyn and Baltimore Noir.

  K.j.a. Wishnia's first novel featuring Ecuadorian-American P.I. Filomena Buscarsela, 23 Shades of Black, was a finalist for both Edgar and Anthony awards, and was followed by four other novels, including Soft Money and Red House. He lived in Ecuador for several years, and taught English at Queens College, CUNY. Wishnia gives special thanks to his students at Suffolk Community College, especially Victor Nieves, for providing him with the authentic ghetto phraseology.


  Xu Xi is the author of six books, including the novel The Unwalled City and Overleaf Hong Kong (stories and essays), and has edited two anthologies of Hong Kong literature. She teaches at Vermont College's MFA program, and lives and writes primarily between Manhattan, upstate New York, Hong Kong, and the South Island of New Zealand.

  Shay Youngblood is the author of the novels Black Girl in Paris and Soul Kiss and a collection of short fiction, The Big Mama Stories. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a Pushcart Prize, a Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, a 2004 New York Foundation for the Arts Sustained Achievement Award, and a 2011/2012 Japan-US Friendship Commission Fellowship. Shay lived in Staten Island from 1995 to 2002.

  About the Akashic Noir Series

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  The Akashic Books Noir series was launched in 2004 with the award-winning anthology, Brooklyn Noir. Each book is comprised of all new stories, each taking place within a distinct location in the city of the book. Stories in the series have won multiple Edgar, Shamus, and Hammett awards and the volumes have been translated into 10 languages. Each book is available on our website, as e-books from your favorite vendor, and in print at online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. For more information on the series, including an up-to-date list of available titles, and information on how to purchase the paperback editions of all titles in the series at a group discount (currently 56 titles) please visit www.akashicbooks.com/noirseries.htm.