About the Book
Edited by the bestselling author of The Ice Harvest, St. Louis Noir thickens the Midwest quotient for the Akashic Noir series.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.
In the wake of Chicago Noir, Twin Cities Noir, and Kansas City Noir--all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series--comes the latest Midwest installment, St. Louis Noir. Masterfully curated by Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest (adapted for film, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton), this volume will chill the listener with heartland menace.
Featuring brand new stories by Calvin Wilson, LaVelle Wilkins-Chinn, John Lutz, Paul D. Marks, Colleen J. McElroy, Jason Makansi, S. L. Coney, Michael Castro, Laura Benedict, Jedidiah Ayres, Umar Lee, Chris Barsanti, L. J. Smith, and Scott Phillips.
About the Author :
Scott Phillips was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, and lived for many years in France. He now lives with his wife and daughter in Southern California.
Scott Phillips was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, and lived for many years in France. He now lives with his wife and daughter in Southern California.
Scott Phillips was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, and lived for many years in France. He now lives with his wife and daughter in Southern California.
Rebecca Gibel (a.k.a. Kasha Kensington) is a audiobook narrator and stage actress who has performed in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Camelot (IRNE Award nomination), Urinetown (Denver Post Ovation Award nomination), and Othello. She won the Denver Post Readers' Choice Award for Best Year by an Actress. She is a graduate of the Brown University Trinity Rep MFA acting program, where she was the Stephen Sondheim Fellow.
Adenrele Ojo is an actress, dancer, and audiobook narrator, winner of over a dozen Earphones Awards and the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2018. She made her on-screen debut in My Little Girl, starring Jennifer Lopez, and has since starred in several other films. She has also performed extensively with the Philadelphia Dance Company. As the daughter of John E. Allen, Jr., founder and artistic director of Freedom Theatre, the oldest African American theater in Pennsylvania, is no stranger to the stage. In 2010 she performed in the Fountain Theatre's production of The Ballad of Emmett Till, which won the 2010 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for Best Ensemble. Other plays include August Wilson's Jitney and Freedom Theatre's own Black Nativity, where she played Mary.
Kevin Kenerly, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, earned a BA at Olivet College. A longtime member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has acted in more than twenty seasons, playing dozens of roles.
Lloyd James (a.k.a. Sean Pratt) has been a working professional actor in theater, film, television, and voice-overs for more than thirty years. He has narrated over one thousand audiobooks and won numerous Earphones Awards and nominations for the Audie Award and the Voice Arts Award. He holds a BFA degree in acting from Santa Fe University, New Mexico.
Mirron Willis--actor of film, stage, and television--is the winner of the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2012 and a finalist for the Audie in 2015, as well as the winner of four AudioFile Earphones Awards for his audiobook recordings. He has worked extensively in film and television and on stage with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Houston Shakespeare Festival, and the Ensemble Theatre, among others. He has recorded some 150 audiobooks, including the Smokey Dalton series by Kris Nelscott and My Song by Harry Belafonte. He resides and records audiobooks on his family's historic ranch in East Texas.
P. J. Ochlan is an Audie Award-winning, multiple Earphones Award-winning, and Voice Arts Award-nominated narrator of hundreds of audiobooks. His acting career spans more than thirty years and has also included Broadway, the New York Shakespeare Festival under Joseph Papp, critically acclaimed feature films, and television series regular roles.
Ray Chase graduated from the University of Southern California with a BA in theater and a minor in cinema and television. He has since worked extensively as a voice-over artist. Among his dozens of audiobook narrations are Ian Douglas' Heritage trilogy and Robert Olen Butler's Christopher Marlowe Cobb thrillers.
Donald Corren is an audiobook narrator and a New York actor with leading credits on and Off-Broadway, as well as numerous television appearances. On Broadway, he costarred with Judy Kaye in the critically acclaimed production of Souvenir, and replaced Harvey Fierstein in the seminal production of Torch Song Trilogy. His Off-Broadway appearances include The Soap Myth, Dietrich & Chevalier, The Last Sunday in June, Stephen Sondheim's Saturday Night, and the original New York production of Tomfoolery. His television credits include eight seasons as forensic tech Medill on NBC's Law & Order, as well as his current role as Dr. Kurian on Syfy's Z Nation.
Traber Burns worked for thirty-five years in regional theater, including the New York, Oregon, and Alabama Shakespeare festivals. He also spent five years in Los Angeles appearing in many television productions and commercials, including Lost, Close to Home, Without a Trace, Boston Legal, Grey's Anatomy, Cold Case, Gilmore Girls, and others.
Review :
"Featuring a baker's dozen of original stories, plus one 'poetic interlude, ' this new entry in Akashic's globetrotting anthology series explores, as editor Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest, tells us in his introduction, the 'collision of high and low' that makes St. Louis so interesting to crime writers...The stories here are uniformly strong...tightly written, tightly plotted, mostly character-driven stories of murder and mayhem, death and despair, shadow and shock."
-- "Booklist"
"St. Louis gets a turn to show its dark side in Phillips' collection of thirteen dark tales and a poetic interlude...Phillips' collection eschews the professional: readers will search in vain for flatfeet, gumshoes, or other traditional noir heroes. Just plain old folks being plain old ornery in this spirited, black-hearted collection."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"
