Featured Book: ‘Palm Springs Noir’ Continues Series of Noir Anthologies from Akashic Books
I’m delighted to say my friend and fellow mystery author Michael Craft is among the authors featured in this newest anthology from Akashic Books. (You can listen to my podcast interview with Michael HERE.) Michael is one of the finest writers you’ll encounter, with a skill and delivery that make his name very fitting: a craftsman and a wordsmith whose writing you’ll want to savor. If you’re not familiar with his fiction, you can start now with Palm Springs Noir!
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct location within the geographic area of the book.
Palm Springs Noir features brand-new stories by: T. Jefferson Parker, Janet Fitch, Eric Beetner, Kelly Shire, Tod Goldberg, Michael Craft, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Rob Roberge, J.D. Horn, Eduardo Santiago, Rob Bowman, Chris J. Bahnsen, Ken Layne, and Alex Espinoza.
From the introduction: The best noir writers make us feel the heat of the sun, the touch of a lover. Setting can be gritty but can also be sublime, no longer relegated to urban locales and seedy hotel rooms but also mansions and swimming pools. Hence, Palm Springs, which may seem like an odd setting for a collection of dark short stories–it’s so sunny and bright here. The quality of light is unlike anywhere else, and with an average of three hundred sunny days a year, what could go wrong?…
The stories in this collection come on like the wicked dust storms common to the area. More than half are by writers who live here full-time; all have homes in Southern California. They know this place in ways visitors and outsiders never will. These are not stories you’ll read in the glossy coffee-table books that feature Palm Springs’s good life. There is indeed a lush life to be found here, but for the characters in these stories, it’s often just out of reach.
Michael Craft is the author of seventeen novels, four of which have been honored as finalists for Lambda Literary Awards. His second Mister Puss mystery, ChoirMaster, was a 2020 Gold Winner of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award. In addition, he is the author of two produced plays, and his prize-winning short fiction has appeared in British as well as American literary journals.
Craft grew up in Illinois and spent his middle years in Wisconsin, which inspired the fictitious setting of his current books. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and now lives in Rancho Mirage, California.
In 2017, Michael Craft’s professional papers were acquired by the Special Collections Department of the Rivera Library at the University of California, Riverside. A comprehensive archive of his manuscripts, working notes, correspondence, and other relevant documents, along with every edition of his completed works, is now cataloged and made available for both scholarly research and public enjoyment.
Visit the author’s website at www.michaelcraft.com.