Kacey’s Introduction
What is it about the city?
Over the years of my love affair with noir fiction, I’ve consumed a lot of stories in a lot of formats. Whether films or books or even video games, stories that fit into the noir genre all seem to share this trait: they could only ever have been set exactly where the creator set them.
Let me explain.
Mullholland Falls could never have taken place anywhere but in L.A., in part because of the eponymous street name, but in part because you need that exact mix of postwar society, local and federal corruption, urban and desert environment that only ever existed in that part of Southern California. Same thing with Farewell, My Lovely. The story wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t set among the rich and eccentric in California. Casablanca HAD to take place in the cultural, economic, and philosophical crossroads that was Morocco during the Nazi occupation of France. Harry Dresden isn’t Harry Dresden if he doesn’t live in Chicago. Rick Deckard has to be from L.A. . . .
The list goes on.
So Larry and I started to wonder, what kinds of great stories could we get if we asked our amazing contributors to focus on the city in a noir story?
This volume is the answer to that question.
From 1930s New York to modern-day Key West, to distant space stations, and fantasy worlds that never were, each of these stories has a definite sense of place. The streets in these stories breathe with a life of their own. One that is dark, and gritty, and not for the faint of heart.
Welcome back to the dark underbelly of society. Welcome back to the Noir.
—Kacey Ezell