Literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin curates this volume of stellar noir from the Deep South

These stories are linked by humor, setting, themes and recurring characters — cat lovers, murderers, gamblers, ghosts and fools — but mostly by the movie stars, gods and goddesses who look down on us struggling mortals with a mixture of benevolence and wrath. From Scarlett Johansson to Joan Crawford, Clint Eastwood to Jerry Lewis, they represent the impossible ideals to which lesser beings turn for hope in an otherwise baffling world