“The Corner Pocket” by Bradley Spinelli

At 8:55 am, I was waiting for her. Like a vocation. As any man with a woman will confirm—waiting on her is a gig. Maybe me more than most . . .

“Customers” by Tom Andes

Gardner finished dressing: jeans, his shoulder holster strapped on underneath his leather jacket. He’d started down the stairs when the buzzer sounded. Gripping his arm, the woman stopped him. “Don’t go out there.” . . .

“Dark Carnival” by Suzanne LaBerge

Angie made Ed jealous, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. She loved to drink and flirt. Drugs too, if somebody else was buying. But after Katrina it was different. Most of the bars were closed, most of the men gone to Baton Rouge, Houston, who knew where . . .

Spotlight on booksBnimble

Learn more about New Orleans Noir: The Classics editor Julie Smith’s ebook publishing company, booksBnimble.

Julie Smith’s Introduction to New Orleans Noir: The Classics

To celebrate the release of New Orleans Noir: The Classics, the latest from Akashic’s Noir Series, we’re pleased to give you a look at the glittering constellation of writers that have passed through New Orleans with editor Julie Smith’s introduction, “The Many Ways It Can All Go Away.”

“Harp in the Key of B” by George Masters

Thirty-five minutes before kickoff, my brother Pat got a phone call at the Superdome from his wife Trudy.

Trudy was alone in the back of her antique store on Magazine. Pat walked in, and the bell on the door tinkled.

“What’s the problem?” . . .

“What It Takes to Live” by Alexios Moore

There had, at one time before Katrina, been a park, perhaps beneath his feet, right where a surveyor had discovered the young woman’s body. Ike couldn’t tell anymore. There was just this no-man’s-land of tall weeds between the levee and the Brad Pitt houses, their solar panels absorbing the mid-morning sun . . .