Forget the fedora, but double the length of the dark alley. Noir fiction isn't necessarily what you think. In the public imagination, the idea of noir is dominated by the films of the 1940s and early 1950s—overcoats and cigarettes, femmes fatale with gams that just won't quit, and plenty of the cheapest gin. But noir fiction is something different: there are few hardboiled detectives, and the female characters aren't the sexpots Hollywood makes it profits from. In hardboiled crime fiction, the characters are all tough. In noir, they're all screwed.

Noir fiction is noir—that is, black—because there is no light at the end of the tunnel, no justice, and not even all that much righteous vengeance. What noir does have is the most imaginative yet realistic writing, unforgettable characters, and the hardest heart punches you'll ever be nailed with in prose.

That's the Noir bundle, curated by award-nominated author Nick Mamatas. You can click here to read much more about the bundle, and make sure to click on each cover for reviews, a preview and a personal note from our curator!

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.
- Bertold Brecht

One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there):

“Can you describe this?”

And I said: “I can.”
​
Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.