| Belfast Noir Contributor(s): McKinty, Adrian (Editor), Neville, Stuart (Editor) |
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ISBN: 1617752916 ISBN-13: 9781617752919 Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. OUR PRICE: $16.16 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2014 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Mystery & Detective - Collections & Anthologies - Fiction | Mystery & Detective - International Crime & Mystery - Fiction | Anthologies (multiple Authors) |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 2014938691 |
| Series: Akashic Noir |
| Physical Information: 0.8" H x 5.25" W x 8.25" (0.55 lbs) 218 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - British Isles |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The works are short, allowing readers to savor each snippet or devour the entire compelling book in a day, depending on just how deliciously gloomy they're feeling. --Shelf Awareness, Starred review All the stories are compelling and well executed...Great writing for fans of noir and short stories, with some tales close to perfection. --Library Journal, Starred review Belfast Noir] zooms in on Northern Ireland's capital city, whose history surely more than qualifies it as a breeding ground for noir. --Booklist The choices made by editors McKinty and Neville celebrate lowlifes, convicts, hookers, private eyes, cops and reporters, and, above all, the gray city at the heart of each story. --Kirkus Reviews Belfast, with its bleak, murderous history, at last gets an entry in Akashic's acclaimed noir series. --Publishers Weekly Belfast Noir is one of the strongest entries in Akashic's admirable City Noir series....all stories] are of exceptional quality. Anyone with a fondness for noir, an interest in the past, in contemporary Irish writing, or simply an appreciation of excellent prose should snap this one up. --Reviewing the Evidence Singapore Noir, like Belfast Noir, once again proves that Akashic Books' noir series is better than any travel guide. --MysteryPeople Belfast Noir equals the high standards set by its predecessors. --Book Chase Impossibly hard to put down...Belfast shows its true colors (ie bloodstainds) in this gritty collection. --Barbarian Librarian It's almost like visiting Belfast]. --Journey of a Bookseller A terrific collection. --Escape Into Life I was blown away with what I read...This is a great anthology of modern-day noir. --Mom Read It Launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir, Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Reflecting a city still divided, Belfast Noir serves as a record of a city transitioning to normalcy, or perhaps as a warning that underneath the fragile peace darker forces still lurk. Featuring brand-new stories by: Glenn Patterson, Eoin McNamee, Garbhan Downey, Lee Child, Alex Barclay, Brian McGilloway, Ian McDonald, Arlene Hunt, Ruth Dudley Edwards, Claire McGowan, Steve Cavanagh, Lucy Caldwell, Sam Millar, and Gerard Brennan. From the introduction by Adrian McKinty & Stuart Neville: Few European cities have had as disturbed and violent a history as Belfast over the last half-century. For much of that time the Troubles (1968-1998) dominated life in Ireland's second-biggest population centre, and during the darkest days of the conflict--in the 1970s and 1980s--riots, bombings, and indiscriminate shootings were tragically commonplace. The British army patrolled the streets in armoured vehicles and civilians were searched for guns and explosives before they were allowed entry into the shopping district of the city centre...Belfast is still a city divided... You can see Belfast's bloodstains up close and personal. This is the city that gave the world its worst ever maritime disaster, and turned it into a tourist attraction; similarly, we are perversely proud of our thousands of murders, our wounds constantly on display. You want noir? How about a painting the size of a house, a portrait of a man known to have murdered at least a dozen human beings in cold blood? Or a similar house-sized gable painting of a zombie marching across a postapocalyptic wasteland with an AK-47 over the legend UVF: Prepared for Peace--Ready for War. As Lee Child has said, Belfast is still 'the most noir place on earth.' |
Contributor Bio(s): Neville, Stuart: - Stuart Neville's debut novel, The Ghosts of Belfast, won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was picked as one of the top crime novels of 2009 by both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. His subsequent three novels have been short-listed for various awards, including the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. The French edition of The Ghosts of Belfast, Les Fantômes de Belfast, won Le Prix Mystére de la Critique du Meilleur Roman Étranger and Grand Prix du Roman Noir Étranger.Brennan, Gerard: - Gerard Brennan's short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime. He coedited Requiems for the Departed, a collection of crime fiction based on Irish myths. His novella The Point was published by Pulp Press in October 2011 and won the 2012 Spinetingler Award, and his debut novel, Wee Rockets, was published by Blasted Heath in 2012. He is currently working on a creative writing PhD at Queen's University Belfast.Downey, Garbhan: - Garbhan Downey studied and worked in Belfast--his mother's hometown--before returning to his native city of Derry to ply his trade as a reporter and editor. In his youth, he covered courts, crime, and corpses for media groups such as the Irish News and the BBC, before turning his hand to fiction. His work has been described by the Sunday World as "a superb blend of comedy, political dirty tricks and grisly murder, and bizarre twists."McNamee, Eoin: - Eoin McNamee is the author of seventeen novels, including Resurrection Man, The Blue Tango, The Ultras, 12:23, and Orchid Blue. He is the author of a series of thrillers under the pseudynom John Creed. His first book for young adults, the Navigator, was a New York Times best seller. The last novel of the Blue Trilogy, Blue Is the Night, was published in early 2014.McKinty, Adrian: - Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in the North Belfast suburban town of Carrickfergus. His first crime novel, Dead I Well May Be, was short-listed for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award. His novel about a Belfast-based detective in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, The Cold Cold Ground, won the 2013 Spinetingler Award. Its sequel, I Hear the Sirens in the Street, was short-listed for the Ned Kelly Award.Child, Lee: - Lee Child, previously a television director, union organizer, theatre technician, and law student, was fired and on the dole when he hatched a harebrained scheme to write a best-selling novel, thus saving his family from ruin. Killing Floor went on to win worldwide acclaim. Lee was born in England of a Belfast-born father, but now lives in New York City and leaves the island of Manhattan only when required to by forces beyond his control.McGilloway, Brian: - Brian McGilloway was born in Derry in 1974. He is a recipient of the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award and his novels have been short-listed for a CWA Dagger, Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and Irish Book Awards' Crime Novel of the Year. His first Lucy Black novel, Little Girl Lost, was a Kindle #1 best seller in 2013. He lives near the Irish borderlands with his wife and their four children.McDonald, Ian: - Ian McDonald lives in Holywood, County Down, and his most recent novel is Empress of the Sun (the third book in the Everness Series). He has won the Locus Award, Hugo Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award, Philip K. Dick Award, and John W. Campbell Memorial Award.Cavanagh, Steve: - Steve Cavanagh was born and raised in Belfast and is a practicing solicitor. Someday he might get the hang of it. He has won a number of high-profile criminal, disability, and racial discrimination cases that have set new laws. His debut novel, The Defence, featuring former con artist turned trial lawyer, Eddie Flynn, will be released internationally in 2015.Millar, Sam: - Sam Millar is an author and playwright living between Belfast and Dublin. His crime fiction includes the Karl Kane Series and the novels The Redemption Factory, Dark Souls, Darkness of Bones, and The Bespoke Hitman. He also writes for the stage (Brothers In Arms and Bloodstorm) and radio. His memoir, On the Brinks, has been optioned by Warner Bros. and was named a Top Twenty thriller by Le Monde for 2013. He is the recipient of the Golden Balais d'or, France, for Best Crime Book 2013-14.Barclay, Alex: - Alex Barclay is the author of seven crime novels. She studied journalism in college, and went on to work as a journalist and copywriter before writing her first novel, Darkhouse, a Sunday Times Top Ten best seller. Barclay won the Irish Book Awards' Ireland AM Crime Fiction Award for her third novel, Blood Runs Cold, which launched the ongoing FBI Agent Ren Bryce series.Caldwell, Lucy: - Lucy Caldwell was born in Belfast in 1981. She is the author of three novels, along with several stage plays and radio dramas. Her writing has won numerous awards, including the George Devine Award, the Imison Award, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She is currently working on her fourth novel--her first crime novel--and a debut collection of short stories.Edwards, Ruth Dudley: - Ruth Dudley Edwards is an Irish-born journalist, historian, and prize-winning biographer. The targets of her twelve satirical crime novels include gentlemen's clubs, academia, literary prizes, conceptual art, and, always, political correctness. Lawyers are next on her list. She won Last Laugh Awards for Murdering Americans in 2008 and Killing the Emperors in 2013, and in 2010 the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction for Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families' Pursuit of Justice.Hunt, Arlene: - Arlene Hunt is the author of eight novels, including her most recent, The Outsider. When not writing or walking a huge hairy dog, she reviews novels for RTE's Arena, and is the co-owner of Portnoy Publishing. She is currently working on a new novel, Into the Fire.McGowan, Claire: - Claire McGowan was born in 1981 in a small Irish village where the most exciting thing that ever happened was some cows getting loose on the road. After studying at Oxford and living in China and France, she now resides in London, where there aren't any cows but there is the occasional murder in her street. She was previously director of the Crime Writers' Association and now teaches at the first crime-writing MA at City University London.Patterson, Glen: - Glenn Patterson is the author of nine novels, most recently The Rest Just Follows. His nonfiction works are Lapsed Protestant and Once Upon a Hill: Love in Troubled Times. His first film, Good Vibrations (cowritten with Colin Carberry), was released in 2013. |