Download : Boston Noir by Dennis Lehane Novel

Buy This Book

The latest in Akashic’s noir anthologies focusing on specific cities—there have been more than 30 of them since the series’ inception in 2004—features 11 original stories, each set in a different Boston neighborhood. In his introduction, editor Lehane calls noir “working-class tragedy,” which is an apt description of these stories.

A woman murders her boss over an oft-promised but never-delivered promotion; a man finds a dog in the garbage, adopts it, and winds up exacting punishment on the dog’s abusive former owner; a down-on-his-luck New York musician, forced by his wife to relocate to Boston, finds something very unusual to do to pass the time; a post–World War II private eye is hired by a beautiful woman whose hidden agenda has unexpected results.

The stories, written by Lehane and a host of contributors (including Brendan DuBois, Stewart O’Nan, and Jim Fusilli), are uniformly solid, with characters, plots, and atmosphere that evoke the classic noirs of Cain, Woolrich, and Thompson.