Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir.
Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.
Brand-new stories by: David Abrams, Caroline Patterson, Eric Heidle, Thomas McGuane, Janet Skeslien Charles, Sidner Larson, Yvonne Seng, James Grady, Jamie Ford, Carrie La Seur, Walter Kirn, Gwen Florio, Debra Magpie Earling, and Keir Graff.
Montana is a state that many Americans know very little about, but its criminal dimensions can sometimes run as deep as anywhere else in the country. Whether the setting is urban (or what passes for urban in Montana) or rural, or somewhere in between, the stories in this volume bring the full state to life . . . or death.
Buy the book now!
Learn more about Montana Noir!
Visit the dedicated Montana Noir website to see a map, contributor bios, the introduction, and more.
Praise for Montana Noir!
“Terrific . . . Montana Noir is one of the high points in Akashic’s long-running and justly celebrated Noir series . . . Editors Grady and Graff’s selections . . . are all sharply attuned to their settings and to the ways those varying landscapes reflect the darkness within the people who walk the streets or drive the country roads.”
—Booklist
“noir standbys prove both malleable and fertile in these 14 new stories . . . a surprisingly distinct and distinctive set of evocations of different Montana localities that make this collection, like a successful package tour, greater than the sum of its parts. If Montana has a dark side, is anywhere safe from noir?”
—Kirkus Reviews
From the introduction by James Grady and Keir Graff:
This anthology is a road trip through the dreams and disasters of the true Montana, stories written by authors with Montana in their blood, tales that circle you around the state through its cities and small towns . . . No doubt the state’s beauty will still make the very idea of Montana Noir seem incongruous to some. Noir is black-and-white. Streets and alleys. Flashing neon lighting a rain-streaked window. But while noir was definitely an urban invention, it knows no boundaries. Noir is struggle. It’s doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. It’s being trapped. It’s hubris. It’s being defeated yet going on. Sometimes it’s being defeated and not going on.
That’s life everywhere.
This is our Montana.