Wall Street Noir

—“At the Top of His Game” by Stephen Rhodes was selected for inclusion in The Best American Mystery Stories 2008 anthology

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.

Brand-new stories by: John Burdett, Henry Blodget, Peter Blauner, Jason Starr, Megan Abbott, Reed Farrel Coleman, Stephen Rhodes, Twist Phelan, Tim Broderick, Jim Fusilli, David Noonan, Richard Aleas, Lawrence Light, James Hime, Mark Haskell Smith, Peter Spiegelman, and Lauren Sanders.

From a distance—on television, say, or in the pages of the business section—it looks like such a clean, well-lighted place, a place where decisions to buy or sell are guided by formulas and subtle strategy, and thorough, dispassionate consideration of all available facts. A place where cool reason prevails. And sure, that’s one version of Wall Street—call it the CNBC edition. But this book is about another place, just beneath that shiny surface—a place where fear and greed have always held sway. Think WorldCom or Tyco; think Enron. Think Gordon Gekko.

Wall Street Noir illuminates a place whose boundaries have spread well beyond Trinity Church and the East River. In today’s relentlessly global economy, Wall Street is everywhere: a borderless, virtual city encompassing Midtown Manhattan, Main Street, U.S.A., the maquilas of Honduras, the office towers of Shanghai, and the brothels of Bangkok. It’s a shadowy metropolis, as the stories in this exciting collection reveal, and one that’s far more Jim Thompson than Warren Buffet.