Mystery writer takes readers down the mean streets
Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Andrew Welsh-Huggins will lead readers and aspiring writers on a mystery writer’s journey.
Welsh-Huggins is the author and editor of “Columbus Noir,” a collection of 14 stories set in and around the city of Columbus. The program will be held via Zoom on Monday, Oct. 26 beginning at 6:30 p.m.
“Columbus Noir” is the latest title in the Akashic Books “noir” series, which includes tales from more than 100 countries, cities and regions around the world. As in the other anthologies of this genre, “Columbus Noir” has its share of femmes fatales, shady clubs and antiheroes who populate such neighborhoods as Clintonville, German Village, Victorian Village and the South Side.
Today Columbus is an epicenter of the opioid epidemic, awash in heroin and the even deadlier fentanyl as dealers flood the city with their wares. The wealth gap in the city is growing, and Columbus is now one of the deadliest places in the state for babies trying to make it to their first birthday, even more so if their mothers are African American.
These days Columbus is a place forensic investigators are moving to. Overdoses, homicides and infant mortality are as lethal as any big American city.
Welsh-Huggins said he is pleased to present this collection of shadowy tales from the city’s best storytellers set in neighborhoods across the metropolis.
“Sexual passion drives many of the stories, appropriate for a genre marked by protagonists striving for things out of their reach. Racism makes an appearance or two, as do those twin pillars of noir, greed and pride. Still, a deep appreciation of Columbus runs through the book as forcefully as the swath cut by the Olentangy after a couple of days of hard rain,” Welsh-Huggins said.
Email srieger@doverlibrary.org to receive a Zoom invitation.