"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.
Bobby Byrd: Bobby Byrd—publisher, poet and essayist—is the copublisher of Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, TX. In 2005, for their work as publishers and for their involvement in the cultural communities of Mexico and the American Southwest, he and his wife Lee Merrill Byrd received the Lannan Fellowship for Cultural Freedom. 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 (NEA/Instituto de Belles Artes de México). His most recent book of poems, White Panties, Dead Friends and Other Bits and Pieces of Love, received the Southwest Book Award (2008). He is also the coeditor, with his son John William Byrd, of the border nonfiction anthology Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots, & Graffiti from La Frontera.
John William Byrd: John William Byrd is copublisher of Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, TX. He is coeditor of the border nonfiction anthology Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots, & Graffiti from La Frontera (Cinco Puntos, 2002). As a Spanish-to-English translator, his credits include The Festival of the Bones/El Festival de las Calaveras: The Little Bitty Book for the Day of the Dead by Luis San Martin and the novel Out of Their Minds: The Incredible and (Sometimes) Sad Story of Ramon and Cornelio by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite. Byrd is also a freelance essayist, writing articles for online publications about culture and music.
