“African Noir and Societal Critique: An Interview with Kwei Quartey” by William Blick

INTERVIEW: “In The Whitewashed Tombs, I aimed to voice and humanize the struggles and resilience of the LGBTQ+ community in Ghana and much of Africa, where some 32 countries have anti-LGBTQ laws, some with the death penalty as punishment…. But, more widely, it’s stunning and tragic that anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is so prevalent over much of the globe….”

“Making a Friend of Horror: from The Haunted Screen” by J.M. Tyree

NOVEL EXCERPT: “The old trees read my mind and turned the contents of my brain inside out….”

Preview: “Steven Zaillian’s Ripley: Neo-Noir or Revisionary Noir?”

REVIEW ESSAY: “Many aspects of Zaillian’s series, both thematic and visual, make it an almost perfect example of neo-noir. Yet, in other ways, Ripley goes beyond the original noir cycle in ways that are reminiscent of the best revisionary noir films.”

“Dancer Loses Her Head in Tapas Bar” by Jonathan Woods

SHORT FICTION/EROTICA: “Itztli loved life. He also feared the old gods. And the new…”

“A Star Who Knew How To Make an Entrance” by Dan Bronson

NOVEL EXCERPT: “A small price to pay for a sequence that packed them in at the box-office….”

“Out of the Shadows: Neil Jordan’s Marlowe” by Anees Aref

FILM REVIEW: “Kudos to Jordan, screenwriter William Monahan, Liam Neeson and company for bringing the private eye out of the shadows again.”

“Grim Fatale: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s Fatale Compendium” by Brian Greene

GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW: “Originally issued over 24 installments between 2012-14, the entire series is now conveniently collected between one set of covers in Image Comics’s new compendium edition.”

“Hollywood Seamy: Scott Phillips on The Devil Raises His Own” by William Blick

INTERVIEW: “I write for an imaginary reader who is exactly like me in taste and temperament. When I started doing that instead of writing for an imaginary marketplace, that’s when I started getting a little success.”

“The Itch of Iron, The Pull of the Moon” by Carol Borden

FICTION: “She watched the lot for the owners and was as trustworthy about it as could be expected. They thought she was a transient, but had no complaints.”

Excerpt: “So Curse the Day” by Jada M. Davis

NOVEL EXCERPT: “Long ago and dim distant there’d been a place like this, a quiet sun-warmed place like this… That was before they took my mother away and before my father locked me in the house and went away forever….”