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Lone Star Noir
"Sure to be of regional interest and to appeal to fans of noir or 'dark' fiction, this spicy black brew of sinister thrills is not for the squeamish or the easily offended."
-- Library Journal
"Unsettling and shivery."
-- Kirkus Reviews
"Crime, like politics, is local. The folks at Akashic Books understand this . . . "Lone Star Noir" is a solid collection. Heck, it better be -- the state's red clay looks like dried blood. Noir grows out of the ground here."
-- Austin American-Statesman
"What makes Texas noir different from any other noir? Is it just that the gumshoes wear cowboy boots? . . . Akashic Books finally turns its attention to the biggest state in the Lower 48, but all that land just means more places to bury the bodies. As father-son editing partnership Bobby and Johnny Byrd observe in their introduction, this isn't J.R. Ewing's Lone Star State. This is the Texas of chicken shit bingo, Enron scamsters, and a feeling that what happens in Mexico stays in Mexico. […] So what defines Texas noir? Who knows, but you better pray that blood doesn't stain your belt buckle."
-- Austin Chronicle
Includes brand-new stories by: James Crumley, Joe R. Lansdale, Claudia Smith, Ito Romo, Luis Alberto Urrea, David Corbett, George Weir, Sarah Cortez, Jesse Sublett, Dean James, Tim Tingle, Milton Burton, Lisa Sandlin, Jessica Powers, and Bobby Byrd.
Bobby Byrd is the co-publisher of Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, Texas. As a poet, Byrd is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship, the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship awarded by the University of New Mexico, and an International Residency Fellowship.
John Byrd, co-publisher of Cinco Puntos Press, is co-editor (with Bobby Byrd) of the anthology Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots & Graffiti from La Frontera. He is also a Spanish-to-English translator and a freelance essayist.
276 pages, Paperback
First published August 13, 2010
53 people are currently reading
271 people want to read
About the author
James Crumley
61 books313 followersJames Arthur Crumley was the author of violent hardboiled crime novels and several volumes of short stories and essays, as well as published and unpublished screenplays. He has been described as "one of modern crime writing's best practitioners", who was "a patron saint of the post-Vietnam private eye novel"and a cross between Raymond Chandler and Hunter S. Thompson.His book The Last Good Kiss has been described as "the most influential crime novel of the last 50 years."
Crumley, who was born in Three Rivers, Texas, grew up in south Texas, where his father was an oil-field supervisor and his mother was a waitress.
Crumley was a grade-A student and a football player, an offensive lineman, in high school. He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but left to serve in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1961 in the Philippines. He then attended the Texas College of Arts and Industries on a football scholarship, where he received his B.A. degree with a major in history in 1964. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of Iowa in 1966. His master's thesis was later published as the Vietnam War novel One to Count Cadence in 1969.
Crumley had not read any detective fiction until prompted to by Montana poet Richard Hugo, who recommended the work of Raymond Chandler for the quality of his sentences. Crumley finally picked up a copy of one of Chandler's books in Guadalajara, Mexico. Impressed by Chandler's writing, and that of Ross Macdonald, Crumley began writing his first detective novel, The Wrong Case, which was published in 1975.
Crumley served on the English faculty of the University of Montana at Missoula, and as a visiting professor at a number of other colleges, including the University of Arkansas, Colorado State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
From the mid-80s on he lived in Missoula, Montana, where he found inspiration for his novels at Charlie B's bar. A regular there, he had many longstanding friends who have been portrayed as characters in his books.
Crumley died at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana on September 17, 2008 of complications from kidney and pulmonary diseases after many years of health problems. He was survived by his wife of 16 years, Martha Elizabeth, a poet and artist who was his fifth wife. He had five children – three from his second marriage and two from his fourth – eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Crumley, who was born in Three Rivers, Texas, grew up in south Texas, where his father was an oil-field supervisor and his mother was a waitress.
Crumley was a grade-A student and a football player, an offensive lineman, in high school. He attended the Georgia Institute of Technology on a Navy ROTC scholarship, but left to serve in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1961 in the Philippines. He then attended the Texas College of Arts and Industries on a football scholarship, where he received his B.A. degree with a major in history in 1964. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of Iowa in 1966. His master's thesis was later published as the Vietnam War novel One to Count Cadence in 1969.
Crumley had not read any detective fiction until prompted to by Montana poet Richard Hugo, who recommended the work of Raymond Chandler for the quality of his sentences. Crumley finally picked up a copy of one of Chandler's books in Guadalajara, Mexico. Impressed by Chandler's writing, and that of Ross Macdonald, Crumley began writing his first detective novel, The Wrong Case, which was published in 1975.
Crumley served on the English faculty of the University of Montana at Missoula, and as a visiting professor at a number of other colleges, including the University of Arkansas, Colorado State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
From the mid-80s on he lived in Missoula, Montana, where he found inspiration for his novels at Charlie B's bar. A regular there, he had many longstanding friends who have been portrayed as characters in his books.
Crumley died at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana on September 17, 2008 of complications from kidney and pulmonary diseases after many years of health problems. He was survived by his wife of 16 years, Martha Elizabeth, a poet and artist who was his fifth wife. He had five children – three from his second marriage and two from his fourth – eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
March 18, 2022
Read 2 stories and stopped. 1st one, meh (Preacher's Kid). 2nd one (Phelan's First Case), ok except for the whole rape factor. Turns out, I don't like noir.
May 26, 2011
I will confess that when I picked up this book I knew nothing about Noir. I expected a looser language used to convey a somber tone and I did get that, for the two stories I was able to get through. Some of the lauagage was baffling, "he was listening to her, hearing it in the waves of quiet that rolled over him, quiet riding on waves of quiet,"p.40. Then it goes to describe a bayou, all this was suppose to set up a sense of tension as the main character was not aware of the man who was set on killing him was already killed by his new receptionist. It baffles me. This sentence is forever burned into my mind like Meyer's own, " 'I know.' I agreed." Mind you it's not as bad as that but it fails at what the author was atemping. First off, quiet on waves of quiet. I have been washed, smacked and engulfed by silence but never experienced it riding on a wave of its self. Allowing for poetic lisence we'll say silence can be a wave, but why would it ride itself? When has quiet ever layered itself? I believe it was to set up the comparison to the swamp but why a swamp? This man was fearing for his life and now he is picturing a swamp. Is the swamp a symbol of hidden danger and death 'cause the way it was written made me want to spend a quiet afternoon in a boat fishing. A log that you weren't sure of would have done a better job. Then there's the practial side. This takes place a small room with an open window on the gulf of Texas. If this is a time before traffic became a constant noise then I promise you the wind is blowing and as quiet as they claim it is you could hear the ocean. All the time.
But enough with the nick-picking nerdy look at the details. Let's get to the part that made it impossible for me to finish the book. It's unnecessarily sexaul. Now the Noir fans have every right to point out that, that's the nature of the beast and I bow to you and your superior knowledge, I always will since I have already admitted to the crimes of ignorance and not even finishing a book which is collection of story stories by various authors, but I do want to point out a few things. The first story had no place to put in the standard bedroom scene so the writer decided to do a brief, one sentence flashback to when the main charter banged a cheerleader back in his high school days. Then to make up, I suppose, the laugage turns into a leering creeper staring at these high school girls. I don't want to know about thier "over loaded bra(s)" or thier long legs. None of this is helping with your missing person case you sicko! In fact everything I read after this point had me feel dirty, ashamed to have bought this book and that I needed to go back in time and arrest these people. The next story is about a woman who brought her two young girls and their friends to their beach house where she goes off in the night to get drunk and cheat on her husband, and a few years later while her daughthers are still under 18 she brings them allow and invites them to join her. It's appalling! It was at this point I didn't want anything more to do with this book.
Fans of Noir might enjoy it, though I warn it's not the best representative of Texas, unless I really didn't learn that much from my time on the coast. Conservative readers, to you I say, read the introduction and then walk away. I wish that's what I did, for the introduction is nice. I freely confess that this is an unfair review and do not wish to stray into new territory without some research before writting public reviews again.
Wishing you all good tea and good reads,
LongHair
But enough with the nick-picking nerdy look at the details. Let's get to the part that made it impossible for me to finish the book. It's unnecessarily sexaul. Now the Noir fans have every right to point out that, that's the nature of the beast and I bow to you and your superior knowledge, I always will since I have already admitted to the crimes of ignorance and not even finishing a book which is collection of story stories by various authors, but I do want to point out a few things. The first story had no place to put in the standard bedroom scene so the writer decided to do a brief, one sentence flashback to when the main charter banged a cheerleader back in his high school days. Then to make up, I suppose, the laugage turns into a leering creeper staring at these high school girls. I don't want to know about thier "over loaded bra(s)" or thier long legs. None of this is helping with your missing person case you sicko! In fact everything I read after this point had me feel dirty, ashamed to have bought this book and that I needed to go back in time and arrest these people. The next story is about a woman who brought her two young girls and their friends to their beach house where she goes off in the night to get drunk and cheat on her husband, and a few years later while her daughthers are still under 18 she brings them allow and invites them to join her. It's appalling! It was at this point I didn't want anything more to do with this book.
Fans of Noir might enjoy it, though I warn it's not the best representative of Texas, unless I really didn't learn that much from my time on the coast. Conservative readers, to you I say, read the introduction and then walk away. I wish that's what I did, for the introduction is nice. I freely confess that this is an unfair review and do not wish to stray into new territory without some research before writting public reviews again.
Wishing you all good tea and good reads,
LongHair
June 14, 2021
I've enjoyed several of these Akashic Noir collections. This one consists of stories set in different areas of Texas. No bad ones, but some are better than others. And one specific story that was very dark and disturbing.
April 18, 2013
Some of these are really disturbing (as in I wish I could unread them), and others are more in the campy noir style I like. It's a good mix for the different types of noir fans. Being new to Texas, I thought I might learn a bit about the state - turned out not so much.
October 7, 2015
A fine collection of contemporary crime fiction, all set in the great state of Texas. This is a relatively diverse set of authors for the genre and a nice stretching of what noir-y crime fiction can be. Plus the title is fun to say.
December 30, 2015
Disappointing
November 22, 2017
As with the other city/state "noir" books this is a collection of stories of varying quality, but all with a noir outlook and a moral outcome not sought. The first story does have the best line I have ever read outside of James M. Cain: "Phelan asked about the girl's rap sheet but the dial tone was noncommittal."
One more thing - there is a map at the front of the book showing the locations in Texas of all the stories. Amazingly, though, an adjacent state to the northeast is labeled Alabama - even I with my east coast bias know that is Arkansas.
One more thing - there is a map at the front of the book showing the locations in Texas of all the stories. Amazingly, though, an adjacent state to the northeast is labeled Alabama - even I with my east coast bias know that is Arkansas.
October 12, 2022
These fourteen stories, though set in the singular locale of Texas, are about the same things that noir is about in the other forty-nine states: avarice, greed, murder. Thus, making the collection rather universal. Divided into three parts—rural Texas, urban Texas, and Gulf-Coast Texas—each story brings to life those three qualities. Noir allows readers to experience this thrilling but illicit word vicariously so that we never ever have to commit such crimes ourselves. Title is part of the Akashic Noir Series.
April 16, 2023
This collection was certainly noir. Several of the tales were quite dark and some mean spirited. One or two were just weird. Each one is set in a different town in Texas. In some cases, the locale was relevant to the tale or at least clearly part of the setting. In a few though, the setting could have been anywhere. There was no real local Texas feel. An interesting collection, though.
June 13, 2022
I love the Noir series, and this one is my new favorite! The stories were all great, but my favorites were in towns I'd never heard of. I highly recommend this if you're into the sort of trailer-park gritty Southern stories that make you glad you're not in them.
March 2, 2018
James Arthur Crumley, just the best.
Wish he would have authored the rest.
Wish he would have authored the rest.
May 7, 2022
This had a few interesting stories, most of them less so. I was a little disappointed, honestly. I’m glad I read it and I might try another of this Noir series, but we’ll see.
July 14, 2022
Good stories for bedtime, if you don't get freaked out by frightening and just weird people, or events that might have come from a nightmare. The stories are noir to the core.
March 4, 2023
Of the 14 stories there were maybe two that weren’t real stinkers. As disappointing as Dallas Noir was, this was worse. Two stars is being kind.
September 1, 2025
A very good collection of Noir short stories!
August 22, 2017
Really disappointed in this book. Not noir at all, and there are plenty of great writers in Texas. The collection was put together by someone that doesn't understand noir or what makes a story well written.
Want to read
July 29, 2015"Sure to be of regional interest and to appeal to fans of noir or 'dark' fiction, this spicy black brew of sinister thrills is not for the squeamish or the easily offended."
--Library Journal
"Unsettling and shivery."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Crime, like politics, is local. The folks at Akashic Books understand this . . . "Lone Star Noir" is a solid collection. Heck, it better be -- the state's red clay looks like dried blood. Noir grows out of the ground here."
--Austin American-Statesman
"What makes Texas noir different from any other noir? Is it just that the gumshoes wear cowboy boots? . . . Akashic Books finally turns its attention to the biggest state in the Lower 48, but all that land just means more places to bury the bodies. As father-son editing partnership Bobby and Johnny Byrd observe in their introduction, this isn't J.R. Ewing's Lone Star State. This is the Texas of chicken shit bingo, Enron scamsters, and a feeling that what happens in Mexico stays in Mexico. […] So what defines Texas noir? Who knows, but you better pray that blood doesn't stain your belt buckle."
--Austin Chronicle
Includes brand-new stories by: James Crumley, Joe R. Lansdale, Claudia Smith, Ito Romo, Luis Alberto Urrea, David Corbett, George Weir, Sarah Cortez, Jesse Sublett, Dean James, Tim Tingle, Milton Burton, Lisa Sandlin, Jessica Powers, and Bobby Byrd.
Bobby Byrd is the co-publisher of Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, Texas. As a poet, Byrd is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship, the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship awarded by the University of New Mexico, and an International Residency Fellowship.
John Byrd, co-publisher of Cinco Puntos Press, is co-editor (with Bobby Byrd) of the anthology Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots & Graffiti from La Frontera. He is also a Spanish-to-English translator and a freelance essayist.
**
October 3, 2013
This is a great concept and since I live in Texas, I was excited to read this book and look for some familiarity, some landmarks, or street names of the many Texas cities I’ve been to. You would think that a state known for its size would also be a character in these stories, after all, these stories were written by current Texas authors weren’t they? It didn’t seem that the great state of Texas played as big as a role as I assumed it would, which is disappointing (to me anyway). Speaking of, I thought several of the stories were disappointing, some were a little disjointed, the writing didn’t flow, and I found myself thinking “how did this story make it in the book?” There was one absolute standout, which made the book worth the price; it was dark, nail-biting, and tragic but not necessarily noir. In fact, not many of these stories had a classic noir feel, I was expecting more of a crime drama type and some of these were more on the psychological horror side. Not a bad thing, but a crime drama book with stories that take place across Texas would have been cool. With a title like “Lone Star Noir” I kind of thought it would be all gritty drama with modern cowboys and it wasn’t.
Worth the read for short stories by: Claudia Smith, Jessica Powers, and Sarah Cortez.
Worth the read for short stories by: Claudia Smith, Jessica Powers, and Sarah Cortez.
Read
September 20, 2012A collection of short stories, noir, based in Texas. This was great. I love the concept. But some of these stories are not that tough. "Oh no, some guy from the suburbs met a meth-head hooker! Ewwww!" Dude obviously didn't even know what he was talking about, probably did some second-hand research. Talked to some people. A few are just nasty for the sake of being nasty without much in the way of style. One in particular I wish I'd never seen. Oh well. My brother Chris and I have many that are true that would put a few of these in the shade. Maybe I will do something about that. I am reminded of the Robert Fate "Baby Shark" books, which I love.
January 18, 2017
A good read over-all, despite an occasional miss.
Favorites:
"Cherry Coke" - Milton T. Burton - Poker games in Tyler.
"Duckweed" - George Wier
"Six-Finger Jack" - Joe R. Lansdale
"Phelan's First Case" - Lisa Sandlin - A p.i. story in Beaumont.
"Six Dead Cabbies" - Tim Tingle - Teens working at Ellington Air Force Base.
All five of these are from the Back Roads section or the Gulf Coast section. The Big City stories kind of seemed low on the Texas factor.
Favorites:
"Cherry Coke" - Milton T. Burton - Poker games in Tyler.
"Duckweed" - George Wier
"Six-Finger Jack" - Joe R. Lansdale
"Phelan's First Case" - Lisa Sandlin - A p.i. story in Beaumont.
"Six Dead Cabbies" - Tim Tingle - Teens working at Ellington Air Force Base.
All five of these are from the Back Roads section or the Gulf Coast section. The Big City stories kind of seemed low on the Texas factor.
March 9, 2011
Good short story collection, interesting stories and good writing throughout. I am enjoying all of the "Noir" collections so far.
April 14, 2012
A lot of the stories just got away from me someting great
May 28, 2014
Hit or miss. Interesting concept. I like the geographical references and organization of the stories, but most of the stories did not capture my imagination.
September 8, 2014
Most of these were pretty good. Except for "Montgomery Clift," which was well-written but made me want to take a shower afterwards. Geeyack. Still, looking forward to the next volume.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 16, 2021
5/10 - A couple of standout tales, but mostly forgettable. That seems to be the standard for the __ Noir series. I still like reading them.
August 29, 2013
I didn't finish this one. Read one story, found it way too grim and gave up.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews