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.

“The Pilot Light” by Paul Renault

Rachel warmed her hands on the cup at my kitchen table. “Daniel came over last night,” she said. “You call the cops?” . . .

“Lena” by Preston Lang

In four years William had read through countless declarations of affection and promises of riches, searching for the one. Here it was at last: the love he’d been waiting for . . .

“Soul Mates” by Steven Jay Flam

Teammates on the Watertown High hockey team called them The James Brothers. James Rogers was a blue-eyed white teenager while James Brook was the only African American on the team. The two friends were inseparable and after high school graduation, they decided to hitchhike together across the USA . . .

“Hamptons Beach Bash” by Howard Gimple

We’re parked at the end of a long driveway. Pristera wags a finger at me. “Stay in the car . . . “

“The Fire Inside” by James Glass

Lars Thompson opened the fridge and looked for something to eat. It had been several days since he’d had a real meal that didn’t come from a garbage can . . .

“Nobody’s Home” by R.J. Fox

Now that R.I.P knew how to achieve his goal, he just had to find the means. So he got into his clunker of a car, which was parked on one of Detroit’s countless seedy, run-down streets littered with as many broken streetlamps as broken dreams . . .

“Flashlights in the Distance” by Nick Manzolillo

We are supposed to meet beneath the stars, while the ocean whispers. I’ve stripped to my briefs and sampled the water with my toes . . .

“Hit the Till” by Costa Koutsoutis

The first thing out of his mouth when I sat down was about the High Park. I hadn’t been in maybe a year or so since I’d moved out of the neighborhood, but my brother was a regular . . .