London Noir

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What you have in your hands is not a collection of crime stories set in London. This is rather a collection of crime stories that are London. The things that happen within these pages would not be unfamiliar to those who have come before to render the city’s psyche in words, art, music, theater, or magic. It’s not that this was the city of William Blake, Charles Dickens, Dr. Johnson, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Dafoe, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Dylan Thomas, Francis Bacon, Joe Strummer, or Johnny Rotten. It’s that it still very much is.

London needs illumination from its own darkness, from its perpetual cycle of crimes. This is also the city of Newgate Prison, Bedlam, Amen Corner, Tyburn Cross, the London Monster, Spring-heeled Jack, Jack the Ripper, Jack the Hat, the Blind Beggar, the Baltic Exchange, and 10 Rillington Place. The most famous detective in the world, Sherlock Holmes, stepped out of the smog of a London night, shouted, “The game’s afoot!” and conspired to send his creator Arthur Conan Doyle, along with every actor who tried to make him flesh, mad.

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