Tag: noir

Books

Exclusive Interview: “Two Truths And A Lie” Author Mark Stevens

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date April 8, 2026
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Mark Stevens Two Truths And A Lie Flynn Martin Thrillers

While a lot of mystery writers make their main character a detective or a cop or some other member of law enforcement — or someone who wishes they were — author Mark Stevens went a different route when he introduced Flynn Martin in the noir mystery novel No Lie Lasts Forever by making her a disgraced TV reporter. Now Flynn has another mystery to solve with Two Truths And A Lie (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), the second book in Steven’s Flynn Martin Thriller series.

In the following email interview, Stevens discusses what inspired and influenced what he says is the middle story in a trilogy.

Books

Exclusive Interview: “The Skinny” Author Harold Goldberg

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date March 23, 2026
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Harold Goldberg The Skinny A Stan Kaminski Mystery

While noir novels often conjure images of 1940s or ’50s, the genre is not restricted by time and space. Just ask author Harold Goldberg, who, in the following email interview, talks about why his Polish noir mystery novel The Skinny (paperback) is set in the 1990s…among other things.

[Note: Like me, Harold has been writing about video games since time immemorial, and he and I have known each other almost as long.]

Books

Exclusive Interview: “Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl” Author P.A. Cornell

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date March 4, 2026
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P.A. Cornell Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl

One of the more interesting aspects of the video games The Outer Worlds and The Outer Worlds 2 is how they’re set in the far future, but a far future that seems, well, retro. It’s a similar kind of retro-futurism that’s at the heart of author P.A. Cornell’s romantic, noir-ish, retro-futuristic science fiction novelette, Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl (paperback, Kindle).

In the following email interview, Cornell discusses what inspired and influenced this sci-fi story, including why she went retro-future as opposed to just, well, future.

Books

Exclusive Interview: “The Obake Code” Author Makana Yamamoto

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date February 25, 2026
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You can’t keep a good hacker down. Which may be why, in their new cyberpunk lesbian space heist novel The Obake Code (paperback, Kindle, audiobook), author Makana Yamamoto is concentrating on Malia, the hacker from Yamamoto’s noir sci-fi crime story / cyberpunk lesbian space heist novel Hammajang Luck.

In the following email interview, Yamamoto talks about what inspired and influenced this stand-alone sequel.

Books

Exclusive Interview: “Galaxy Grifter” Author A. Zaykova

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date June 3, 2025
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Science fiction is full of lovable rogues, from Star Trek‘s James T. Kirk and Star Wars‘ Han Solo or Firefly‘s Mal Reynolds and the MCU’s Star-Lord.

But in the following email interview, author A. Zaykova says the lovable rogue at the center of her noir sci-fi space opera novel Galaxy Grifter (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) is actually more rogue than lovable. “Levi isn’t based on anyone I personally know,” she says, “and if I did, I’d stay far away from them.”

Books Comics

Exclusive Interview: “Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business” Writer Arvind Ethan David

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date May 20, 2025
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Detective Philip Marlowe is one of the most iconic noir characters in both film and literature, the former of which has seen him played by everyone from Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum to Liam Neeson.

Now Marlow is coming to a different visual medium in Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business (hardcover, Kindle), a graphic novel adaptation of Chandler’s 1950 novella.

In the following email interview, writer Arvind Ethan David — who worked with illustrator Ilias Kyriazis and colorist Cris Peters to adapt Business — talks about how this adaptation came to be, how its structure differs slightly from Chandler’s original novella, as well as his plans to adapt some of Marlowe’s other iconic cases.

Books Comics

Exclusive Interview: “Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy: The Graphic Adaptation” Art Director / Illustrator Paul Karasik

Paul Karasik Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy The Graphic Adaptation

In 1994, art director Paul Karasik worked with iconic author Paul Auster and comic book artist David Mazzucchelli [Batman: Year One] on a graphic novel adaptation of Auster’s 1985 noir detective mystery novel City Of Glass.

But while Glass was never a lone detective story — it was actually part of a series with 1986’s Ghosts and 1986’s The Locked Room that Auster called The New York Trilogy — graphic novels of the other two books were not to be.

That is, until now. In Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy: The Graphic Adaptation (hardcover, Kindle), fans of the titular novels not only get the original adaptation of City Of Glass, but also new graphic novels of Ghosts and The Locked Room.

In the following email interview, Karasik — who served as the art director on the collection, as well as the artist on The Locked Room — talks about how this came together, how Glass happened back in the day, and how Auster was involved in both.

Books

Exclusive Interview: “Don’t Sleep With The Dead” Author Nghi Vo

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date April 9, 2025
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Some authors like to put their own spins on classic novels. Others like writing sequels to those iconic stories.

But with Don’t Sleep With The Dead (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), author Nghi Vo is having her martini and drinking it too by writing a sequel to her 2021 novel The Chosen And The Beautiful, which was her reworking of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 novel The Great Gatsby.

In the following email interview, Vo discusses what inspired and influenced this noir historical fantasy novella, as well as how it connects to Chosen.

Books

Exclusive Interview: “Two Truths And A Lie” Author Cory O’Brien

Post author By Paul Semel
Post date March 28, 2025
No Comments on Exclusive Interview: “Two Truths And A Lie” Author Cory O’Brien

You never know when inspiration may strike, or what may strike it.

Take Cory O’Brien’s new cyberpunk noir science fiction mystery novel Two Truths And A Lie (hardcover, Kindle, audiobook), which, he explains in the following email interview, was inspired by a costly art project.