“Ibis” by Ted Flanagan
Keenan offered me the drop gun but I said no. I didn’t think I was that kind of cop. . .
Category: Mondays Are Murder
Mondays Are Murder: Original Noir Fiction to Get Your Week off to a Dark Start
Launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir, our award-winning city-based Noir Series now has over 60 volumes in print, with many more to come. Each volume is overseen by an editor with intimate knowledge of the title city; each story is brand new from a local author, and each is set within a distinct neighborhood or location.
While we’ve been thrilled to publish the original works of over 800 authors in the series, we still long for more. And while we are constantly seeking homegrown editors with native knowledge of national and international cities not yet visited by the series, we’re eager to dig deeper.
Mondays Are Murder allows us to offer a glimpse of cities not yet seen, neighborhoods or hidden corners not yet explored in previous volumes, and, we hope, writers not yet exposed to our company. Contributions to the Akashic Noir Series are bound by mood: our authors are challenged to capture the sometimes intangible moods of “noir” and of “place”. The stories run the gamut from darkly-toned literary glimpses to straight-up crime fiction, while similarly capturing the unique aura of the story’s location.
Our web model for the series has one further dimension: A 750-word limit. Sound like murder? It is. But so are Mondays.
“Consequences” by J. Malcolm Garcia
Al stops him. . .
“Bake and Licks” by Lisa Allen-Agostini
He used to beat she like a snake. When he done, she skin so black and blue and swell she look just like the Southern Main Road. . .
“The Fall” by Nathan Ward
A riderless horse clopping with hungry purpose down the block was not such a rare sight on that part of the West Side then. . .
“The System Never Fails” by Spencer Fleury
The dog track was never in our plans for the evening. Scott’s system was for jai alai, not dogs, and tuition for the fall semester was due tomorrow, so he needed to raise it tonight . . .
“Ladies’ Night Out” by Will Whitson
I could hear the music clearly from Legends Corner. Even the laughter of a few thousand drunken tourists was audible . . .
“Mr. Jimmy” by John Jeremiah
It’s not there anymore. It was only a short walk from the Chelsea Hotel to Eleventh Avenue. I loved that old saloon . . .
“The Valley” by Charles Roland
Gazing down at the farmhouses in the valley below, feeling the wind whipping against his face, Mr. Hawkins thought: I wonder if I’ll be able to breathe on the way down. . .