Explore the dark, rainy underbelly of one of America's most beautiful but enigmatic cities. 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: Gigi Little, Justin Hocking, Christopher Bolton, Jess Walter, Monica Drake, Jamie S. Rich (illustrated by Joëlle Jones), Dan DeWeese, Zoe Trope, Luciana Lopez, Karen Karbo, Bill Cameron, Ariel Gore, Floyd Skloot, Megan Kruse, Kimberly Warner-Cohen, and Jonathan Selwood. From the introduction by Kevin Sampsell: “Settled in 1843 and named by a coin flip (we were almost named Boston), Portland had troubles from the start. The first sheriff, William Johnson, was busted for selling ‘ardent spirits.’ He had been ‘reduced by an evil heart,’ said the indictment. The first couple of decades were probably pretty rough, what with the constant flooding and muddy streets making all the citizens cranky . . . Later, in the 1940s and ’50s, the city practically thrived on criminal activity. Speakeasies, brothels, and gambling dens popped up across the downtown area . . . Portland became known as quite the decadent town, even prompting Bobby Kennedy to wrangle up its main bad guys for a televised Racketeering Committee meeting in 1957. One senator said at the hearings, ‘If I lived there, I would suggest they pull the flags down to half-mast in public shame.’ A lot of these places of ‘shame’ remain standing, and while many are occupied now by salons and offices, some of them are probably still home to gambling and stripping. (Portland does, after all, have more strip clubs per capita than any other city in America―and yep, they take it all off here.) . . . Portland continues to update its own version of a contemporary utopian society as more and more people flock here. But even in utopia, crime and unrest are always bubbling right under the surface.“ KEVIN SAMPSELL is a bookstore employee and writer. He is the author of a short story collection, Creamy Bullets, and the memoir , A Common Pornography . He is also the editor of The Insomniac Reader , Portland Noir , and the publisher of the micropress, Future Tense Books. Portland Noir Akashic Books Copyright © 2009 Akashic Books All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-933354-79-8 Contents Introduction.......................................................................17Karen Karbo The Clown and Bard S.E. Twenty-Eighth Avenue.........................36Luciana Lopez St. Johns Julia Now................................................54Ariel Gore Water under the Bridge Clinton........................................67Floyd Skloot Alzheimer's Noir Oaks Bottom........................................78Dan DeWeese The Sleeper Highway 30...............................................103Jonathan Selwood The Wrong House Mount Tabor.....................................122Monica Drake Baby, I'm Here Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital.......................142Bill Cameron Coffee, Black Seven Corners.........................................163Jamie S. Rich & Jolle Jones Gone Doggy Gone Montgomery Park.....................176Jess Walter Virgo Pearl District.................................................186Chris A. Bolton The Red Room Powell's City of Books..............................205Justin Hocking Burnside Forever Burnside Skatepark...............................218Zoe Trope Hummingbird S.E. Eighty-Second Avenue..................................232Gigi Little Shanghaied Old Town..................................................245Megan Kruse Lila Powell Boulevard................................................257Kimberly Warner-Cohen People Are Strange Sandy Boulevard.........................274 Introduction Crime and Unrest in Utopia I wonder how people think of Portland from the outside. Is it a hippie haven where everyone reads Ken Kesey and hangs out at open mike night? Is it the gray, grungy, junkie-riddled streets of early Gus Van Sant movies? A cheap, trendy town full of myopic record labels and zinesters? Sex worker paradise? Bookstore heaven? A place where New Yorkers come to feel important and/or relaxed? Some wet old logging town that somehow became "one of the best cities in America"? Yeah, it's all that and a fancy coffee spilled on your Gore-Tex jacket (the same one you soiled with microbrew last night). People who live in Portland love being here, despite its imperfections. We tend to love our mayors (even the currently scandalous Sam Adams) despite the sketchy police force, and we cherish the great public transportation even when every other neighborhood is being torn up for renovation. The restaurants are amazing and the music scene seems like it's in a perpetual heyday. If Portland was Seattle's kid nephew in the past, these days it's more like Seattle is our creepy old uncle. (Sorry, I didn't mean to get off track.) I