Denise Hamilton (ed.) - Los Angeles Noir

This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Akashic Books

2007 Akashic Books

Introduction 2007 Denise Hamilton

Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple

Los Angeles map by Sohrab Habibion

ePUB ISBN-13: 978-1-936-07016-9

ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-22-4

ISBN-10: 1-933354-22-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006938153

All rights reserved

Akashic Books

PO Box 1456

New York, NY 10009

info@akashicbooks.com

www.akashicbooks.com

ALSO IN THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES:

Baltimore Noir, edited by Laura Lippman

Boston Noir, edited by Dennis Lehane

Bronx Noir, edited by S.J. Rozan

Brooklyn Noir, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Brooklyn Noir 3: Nothing but the Truth

edited by Tim McLoughlin & Thomas Adcock

Chicago Noir, edited by Neal Pollack

D.C. Noir, edited by George Pelecanos

D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, edited by George Pelecanos

Delhi Noir (India), edited by Hirsh Sawhney

Detroit Noir, edited by E.J. Olsen & John C. Hocking

Dublin Noir (Ireland), edited by Ken Bruen

Havana Noir (Cuba), edited by Achy Obejas

Istanbul Noir (Turkey), edited by Mustafa Ziyalan & Amy Spangler

Las Vegas Noir, edited by Jarret Keene & Todd James Pierce

London Noir (England), edited by Cathi Unsworth

Los Angeles Noir, edited by Denise Hamilton

Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Denise Hamilton

Manhattan Noir, edited by Lawrence Block

Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Lawrence Block

Mexico City Noir (Mexico), edited by Paco I. Taibo II

Miami Noir, edited by Les Standiford

New Orleans Noir, edited by Julie Smith

Paris Noir (France), edited by Aurlien Masson

Phoenix Noir, edited by Patrick Millikin

Portland Noir, edited by Kevin Sampsell

Queens Noir, edited by Robert Knightly

Richmond Noir, edited by edited by Andrew Blossom, Brian Castleberry & Tom De Haven

Rome Noir (Italy), edited by Chiara Stangalino & Maxim Jakubowski

San Francisco Noir, edited by Peter Maravelis

San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Peter Maravelis

Seattle Noir, edited by Curt Colbert

Toronto Noir (Canada), edited by Janine Armin & Nathaniel G. Moore

Trinidad Noir, Lisa Allen-Agostini & Jeanne Mason

Twin Cities Noir, edited by Julie Schaper & Steven Horwitz

Wall Street Noir, edited by Peter Spiegelman

FORTHCOMING:

Barcelona Noir (Spain), edited by Adriana Lopez & Carmen Ospina

Copenhagen Noir (Denmark), edited by Bo Tao Michaelis

Haiti Noir, edited by Edwidge Danticat

Indian Country Noir, edited by Liz Martnez & Sarah Corte

Lagos Noir (Nigeria), edited by Chris Abani

Lone Star Noir, edited by Bobby Byrd & John Byrd

Moscow Noir (Russia), edited by Natalia Smirnova & Julia Goumen

Mumbai Noir (India), edited by Altaf Tyrewala

Philadelphia Noir, edited by Carlin Romano

L.A. is epidemically everywhere and discernible only in glimpses.

James Ellroy, James Ellroy Comes Home, 2006

It occurs to her that what she most appreciates about this City of the Angels is that which is missing, the voids, the unstitched borders, the empty corridors, the not yet deciphered. She is grateful for the absence of history.

Kate Braverman, Palm Latitudes, 1988

CITY OF ANGELS & DEMONS

I write crime novels now, but for a decade before that I was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Although Im a native, there are still places I dont know and the landscape changes at such warp speed that its impossible to keep up. Journalism gave me a passport to excavate the citys layers, nose behind the scenes, and interview everyone who wanted to talk and many who didnt.

Walking into the newsroom each morning, I never knew whether Id face a triple homicide at South Pasadena High, a celebrity stalking in Malibu, or a brown bear that lumbered down from the San Gabriel Mountains to splash in someones pool. The city was mythic and alive, pulsing with a thousand short stories unfolding all at once, tales of heartbreak and triumph, survival despite incredible odds and tragedy so horrifying it could have come straight from the ancient Greeks.

Each night when I got home, the voices of Los Angeles played like a broken tape loop in my brain. As time passed, I began to yearn to tell these stories unfettered by the constraints of journalism. Eventually I left the paper and started writing fiction. And if my books have a noir sensibility, well, its a long and hallowed tradition among the citys writers. L.A.s just a noir place.

So when Akashic Books publisher Johnny Temple asked if Id be willing to edit an anthology of new fiction called Los Angeles Noir as part of the Akashic Noir Series, my first thought was that it was a great idea but surely someone had already done it. To my surprise, no one had. Theres a tabloid photo book with that title and a noir cinema book. But what you hold in your hands is the first collection of Los Angeles noir fiction that we know of.

I think youll agree that its about time. Los Angeles is the birthplace of all things noir, starting with the Depression and World War IIera films that oozed an edgy fatalism and sexy recklessness mirroring the social anxiety of the times. Many of film noirs architects were refugees from Hitlers Europe, steeped in Expressionism and existential despair, and they brought that sensibility to the shadows, silhouettes, urban labyrinths, and hard-boiled plots of their movies. Over time, this narrative style infiltrated our waking lives and even our dreams, helping to define how we see the city and to shape the stories we tell about ourselves.

More than a half-century later, Hollywood continues to cast a giant shadow. Maybe its the seductive blur of artifice and reality, the possibility of shucking off the past like last years frock and reinventing yourself beyond your wildest dreams. Maybe its the desperation that descends when the dream goes sour, the duplicity that lurks behind the beauty, the rot of the jungle flowers, the riptides off the sugar sand beaches that carry away the unwary.

Writers like James Cain, Dorothy B. Hughes, Nathanael West, Chester Himes, and Raymond Chandler understood both the hope and the terror that Los Angeles inspires, and they harnessed this duality to create their masterpieces. Hollywood, always a dowsing rod of the culture, reflected it back to the world through film. Even essayists from Carey McWilliams to Joan Didion to Mike Davis gave us prose about Los Angeles thats shot through with noir imagery. When you consider the earthquakes, the fires, the mud slides, the riots, the poverty, the glamour, the wealth, the crime, the crackpots, the cults, the gangs, the scandals, perhaps its inevitable.

Of course, Los Angeles has changed beyond recognition since Philip Marlowe stalked the mean streets. Todays suburbs were orange groves in Chandlers day, and many of the ethnic enclaves that make the city such a vibrant Pacific Rim megalopolis hadnt yet taken root. But the noir essence of Los Angeles never really went away, it just morphed into something more colorful and polyglot. Twenty-first-century L.A. is more noir than ever, a surreal sprawl where the First World and the Third World live cheek by jowl and people are connected across lines of race and class and geography, especially when crime, secrets, and passion intersect.