“The Prodigy” by Jim Towns

POETRY: “The burned shell / of the house / sat empty for years….”

“Graham Moore’s Unified and Inventive The Outfit” by Ken Hall

REVIEW: “The intricately plotted tale of betrayals, informants, and outbreaks of violence is presented in a format familiar to classical theatre but not as common in contemporary filmmaking. The scope of the onscreen narrative is restricted to the tailor shop, the time span is very limited, and the action of the film, while complex, focuses on the importance of some elusive evidence of a ‘rat’ in the Boyle gang.”

“Le Roi de la Porno” by Charles Rammelkamp

POETRY: “No doubt about it, a real moneymaker…. Of course it was going to burn.”

“’It was raining, but it wouldn’t last’: An Interview with James Kestrel on Five Decembers” by Theresa Rodewald

INTERVIEW: “Noir to me is stylistically very interesting because you have this opportunity to explore very intense emotions and situations but to make it in such a stylized fashion, that is still beautiful. That’s what I’m always striving for….”

“Eight O’Clock Sharp” by James McCrone

FICTION: “What had been a general resentment of the halfway house and its rules was now a searing hatred….”

Corporate Gangsters, Rogue Cops, and Big Heists: on Gangster Noir (Preview)

INTERVIEW: “I realized that ’50s noirs were both more numerous and richer than I had originally imagined…and addressed other subgenres that I felt were essential to understanding midcentury American noir….”

“Swamp Witch Blues” by Jason M. Tucker

FICTION: “Heavy, mud-scented air wafted in from the swamp and was warm enough to build up a sweat just sitting. It made everything a bit more miserable.”

“Leaving Rock Bottom” by Robb T. White

FICTION: “If there was a bottom beneath where I stood in that March wind, I didn’t want to know it.”

“Literary Mixtape: Coming Through in Waves – Crime Fiction Inspired by Pink Floyd” by John Talbird

REVIEW ESSAY: “Pink Floyd were so cerebral. Dark, but in a post-apocalyptic-cum-dystopian sci-fi kind of way, not a crime story way. However, the anthology, edited by crime writer and memoirist T. Fox Dunham, makes a certain kind of twisted sense.”