In this chilling portrait of America's Sin City, lady luck is just as likely to dispense cold hard cash as a cold-hearted killing. Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Brand-new stories by: John O'Brien, David Corbett, Scott Phillips, Nora Pierce, Tod Goldberg, Bliss Esposito, Felicia Campbell, Jaq Greenspon, José Skinner, Pablo Medina, Christine McKellar, Lori Kozlowski, Vu Tran, Celeste Starr, Preston L. Allen, and Janet Berliner. From the introduction by Jarret Keene & Todd James Pierce: "' Ooh, Las Vegas,' sang the pioneering country-rocker Gram Parsons. ' Every time I hit your Crystal City, you know you're gonna make a wreck out of me.' As Las Vegans, we regularly read about these wrecked lives in newspapers and magazines. We routinely observe people going about their wildly destructive antics on mainstream TV. Often we can't believe these stories are unfolding in our city. They almost seem like put-ons, elaborate pranks borrowed from atrocious cut-rate screenplays. But there they are, these inhabitants of our city, their mug shots staring us down, making us wonder if what Parsons said is really true—that in Las Vegas your only real friend is the queen of spades . . . "The stories gathered in Las Vegas Noir are written by longtime residents and avid chroniclers of Sin City, authors who take you far beyond the neon of Caesars Palace and into the neighborhoods too dangerous for CSI. Absolutely cliché-free, these stories are full of flesh-and-blood characters trapped in dire circumstances that only real Las Vegas neighborhoods can spring."