'The storytelling has vitality and a spirit of rebellion, giving us hope for the future of all those bad girls with dirty faces and bad boys on bikes.'—The New York Times

'There is about Maggie Estep's work a directness, a clear determination—a drive to cut through, to break through, to claw through—that is impressive.'—A.M. Homes, author of The Mistress’s Daughter

'Maggie Estep is the bastard daughter of Raymond Chandler and Anaïs Nin. Her prose is hard-boiled and sexy; she turns a good phrase and shows some leg.'—Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir!

Alice Hunter is a thirty-six-year-old professional gambler living in Queens, New York. She is modestly successful as a horseplayer and enjoys her work. Though avidly pursued by her lover, Clayton, who she refers to as The Big Oaf, Alice's closest companion is Candy, a small spotted dog, and Alice likes it that way. When Clayton's overzealousness leads Alice to ask one of her racetrack cronies to intimidate Clayton into leaving her, a few things go wrong and Alice turns to her half-sister Eloise, a toy maker, whose own lover has just been killed in a freak accident.

There is fierce love between Alice, Eloise, and Kimberly (their unconventional mother), but it takes Alice's accidental discovery of an awful secret Kimberly has been keeping to truly bring three eccentric women, seventeen dogs, and assorted lovers together.

Maggie Estep has published six books, including Hex, a New York Times Notable Book of 2003. Her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies including: Brooklyn Noir, Queens Noir, Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, The Best American Erotica, and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. She has performed her work in a wide variety of venues ranging from Lincoln Center to Lollapalooza, Charlie Rose, and HBO's Def Poetry Jam. She lives in Woodstock, New York.

New York’s punchiest borough asserts its criminal legacy with all new stories from a magnificent set of today’s best writers. Brooklyn Noir moves from Coney Island to Bedford-Stuyvesant to Bay Ridge to Red Hook to Bushwick to Sheepshead Bay to Park Slope and far deeper, into the heart of Brooklyn’s historical and criminal largesse, with all of its dark splendor. Each contributor presents a brand new story set in a distinct neighborhood.

Brooklyn Noir mixes masters of the mystery genre with the best of New York’s literary fiction community—and, of course, leaves room for new blood. These brilliant and chilling stories see crime striking in communities of Russians, Jamaicans, Hasidic Jews, Puerto Ricans, Italians, Irish and many other ethnicities—in the most diverse urban location on the planet.

Contributors include Pete Hamill, Nelson George, Sidney Offit, Arthur Nersesian, Pearl Abraham, Ellen Miller, Maggie Estep, Adam Mansbach, CJ Sullivan, Chris Niles, Norman Kelley, and many others.

Akashic Books announces Brooklyn novelist Tim McLoughlin as the editor of the anthology (in addition to his contributing a story). McLoughlin’s respect on any Brooklyn street predates the publication of his debut novel Heart of the Old Country (Akashic, 2001), a selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program that was hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “an inspired cross between Richard Price and Ross McDonald.” For years, McLoughlin has worked in the Kings County Supreme Court in downtown Brooklyn.

Praise for McLoughlin’s Heart of the Old Country:
”. . . cracks with the authenticity that only a writer with a perfect ear can accomplish.”—Bob Leuci, author of Blaze

”McLoughlin writes about South Brooklyn with a fidelity to people and place reminiscent of James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan and George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London.”—Sidney Offit, author of Memoir of the Bookie’s Son