I attended a wedding over the Memorial Day weekend. An outdoor wedding. In May. Shoulda been beautiful, yeah? But it was bloody hot already. A bad sign for what's to come. I recall when Doug Liman's Bourne Identity movie came out how sticky and drippy it was in St. Louis and how awesome the cool, dark movie theater was and how further refreshing the pictures onscreen of that lucky amnesiac assassin floating in the cold, cold sea were.

I no longer have money to go to movies, so I'm focusing on northern climes a lot in my reading right now and boo-ya, Akashic drops Moscow Noir in my lap.

No matter your plans, this summer, thanks to Johnny Temple and crew, you can jet set or rickshaw your way around the globe from your own home or office because Akashic books has taken the trouble to scout out and capture the essence of dozens of great destinations, domestic and abroad, in their City Noir series. From Istanbul to Toronto, San Francisco to Delhi, they zero in on one city per book and expose its dark side to you, the armchair traveler, in tales unique to the human condition and flavored by geography and socio-economic climes.

Heavy hitters like Laura Lippman, George Pelecanos, Lawrence Block, Gary Phillips, and Ken Bruen, (Baltimore, Washington D.C., Manhattan, Orange County and Dublin Noir respectively), have edited volumes and recruited established authors like Michael Connelly, James Crumley, Joe R. Lansdale, Scott Phillips, S.J. Rozan, Reed Farrell Coleman, David Corbett, Megan Abbott, Don Winslow, Lee Child, James Sallis, Jess Walter, and Peter Spiegelman as well as the best hungry talent the world over to contribute stories about the places they know and the people who populate them. Year after year, staycation after staycation, I find myself grateful alternately for the air conditioning, sweltering heat, relative remoteness, and proximity to the convenience store where I live as I virtually span the globe, learning the best of the worst everywhere.

And if Moscow, (and Russia and the former Soviet Union in general), float your boat, check out Martin Cruz Smith's Renko series, David Benioff's City of Thieves, Tom Rob Smith's Child 44 or cross the world with the Russian mob with Charlie Stella's Mafiya or David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises.

What did I miss?

Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.