“White Cats” by Fortunato Salazar
Had I actually just dropped Leland? The red-winged blackbirds seemed to think so. . .
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.
“Twins” by Mike Toomey
You could tell by the way that they cleaned the guns that they’d been taught by the same person . . .
“Wise” by Ron Riekki
“Your first body?” “Dead one, yeah.”
“The Hungry Policeman” by Tom Larsen
Capitán Ernesto Guillén, the chief of detectives for Zone Six of Ecuador’s Policía Nacional, was tired and cranky, but most of all hungry. . .
“Monsoon Kiss” by Don West
I knew the precise moment our relationship went sour; I always did . . .
“The King of Concupiscence” by Stephen Ross
Hedgepig believed in himself; belief without question, utter faith . . .
“Smoked” by Brandon Dutton
Three miserable years. But there I was, fucking cigarette in my mouth . . .
“A Summer Underwater” by Evelyn Sharenov
Things happen when you’re not looking. Things that you’re not expecting . . .