Gary Phillips

You may be disturbed—or possibly titillated—to discover what can happen once you cross the Orange Curtain . . .

"'There's a dark side to most places,' even California's sunny Orange County, Edgar-winner T. Jefferson Parker observes in his foreword to this outstanding entry in Akashic's noir series, one of the stronger of the all-original anthologies. The crisp, often seductive prose of the 14

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In A World Of Bikers, Meth, And Overdue Mortgages. . .
All the miles. All the blood. All has led him here. Looking for a place to hole up, O'Conner—with nothing to his name but a failing motorcycle, a gun, and uncollected debts—lies low in the last place he thought he'd end up: the suburbs. But Willow Ridge, once an exclusive gated community, is now tarnished and crumbling. Ordinary citizens cling to their worthless homes while...

"Half a century ago, Old Man Spears was a hero of the ballpark. In an age when baseball was segregated, he played in the Negro Leagues, providing hope for a generation of oppressed African Americans. Decades later, Spears is an old man in a barbershop making ends meet. An offhand comment about a former teammate, Kennesaw Riles, shocks one of his customers, private eye Ivan Monk, who has deeply buried memories of a ball-playing cousin by that name....

"Los Angeles, 1963: African American Korean War veteran Harry Ingram earns a living as a news photographer and occasional process server: chasing police radio calls and dodging baseball bats. With racial tensions running high on the eve of Martin Luther King's Freedom Rally, Ingram risks ending up one of the victims at every crime scene he photographs. When Ingram hears a call over the police scanner to the scene of a deadly automobile accident, he...

"Los Angeles, 1965. Tempers have boiled over in the Watts neighborhood, sparked by the traffic stop of two Black motorists, the Frye brothers, by the Highway Patrol. Freelance crime photographer Harry Ingram is on the scene, capturing images of the cops as they unleash batons, dogs, and water hoses on the predominantly Black crowd. When he snaps proof of an unarmed man being shot down by the LAPD, he winds up in the hospital, beaten, his camera confiscated....

"Within these pages youll find stories of those walking the straight and narrow, until something untoward happens. Maybe its someone taking a step out of line, getting caught up in circumstances spiraling out of their control. Maybe theyre planning the grift, the grab ... whatever it is to finally put them over. Other times the steps they take are to get themselves or people they care about out from under. Youll find the offerings in these pages are...

In this follow-up to the acclaimed In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, expert Sherlockians Laurie King and Les Klinger put forth the question: What happens when great writers/creators who are not known as Sherlock Holmes devotees admit to being inspired by Conan Doyle stories? While some are highly-regarded mystery writers, others are best known for their work in the fields of fantasy or science fiction. All of these talented authors, however share...

"Inspired by recent true events, the all-original stories in Witnesses for the Dead are set in motion by the act of witnessing; the characters who populate these pages are not themselves the original perpetrators of crimes, but find their lives indelibly changed by what they see, as they grapple with coming forward, taking action, or retreating into the shadows. In "Envy" by Christopher Chambers, a sweet, shy wallflower watches as something horrific...