Akashic Noir books in order

Reading order

The Akashic Noir series is a city-based crime fiction anthology collection with 122 entries published between 2002 and 2025. Each volume is named after a specific city or region and collects noir short fiction set in that location. The series started with Brooklyn Noir in 2004 and has since covered cities across every continent, from Chicago and Los Angeles to Lagos, Nairobi, and Addis Ababa.

Several cities have received multiple volumes. Brooklyn alone has three entries, while D.C., Manhattan, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Haiti, and New Orleans each have at least two. Some later volumes carry “The Classics” subtitle, revisiting earlier locations with different selections. The geographic range grew steadily over the years, moving from mostly American cities in the early volumes to include international locations like Istanbul, Delhi, Mumbai, and Baghdad by the late 2000s and 2010s.

The most recent entries are Sacramento Noir and Hamburg Noir, both from 2025. Readers can pick up any volume independently since each one stands on its own as a collection of stories tied to its particular city.