Rome provides a fertile setting for this groundbreaking collection of original stories, which look beyond the tourist façade to the eerie grandeur and rich decadence of this ever-fascinating metropolis.
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: Antonio Scurati, Carlo Lucarelli, Gianrico Carofiglio, Diego De Silva, Giuseppe Genna, Marcello Fois, C.D. Formetta, Enrico Franceschini, Boosta, Francesca Mazzucato, Maxim Jakubowski, Evelina Santangelo, Nicola Lagioia, Tommaso Pincio, Antonio Pascale, and Nicoletta Vallorani.
From the introduction by Chiara Stangalino & Maxim Jakubowski:
“According to the legend, Rome owes its origins to a murder—when one brother killed another in order to grab the crown. Since then, there has been a dark tapestry of misdeeds, plots, and assassinations alongside some of the cruelest crimes in the history of mankind, beginning with Nero and Caligula, all through myriad bloody Vatican intrigues, wars by the handful, urban terrorism, and the arcane modern collusions between politics and the Mafia . . .
Next time you are visiting Italy, enjoy your tourist pursuits but on occasion pause for a moment and try to see what lies beyond the corner of the alley or street you are walking down, or attempt to imagine what might be happening behind those closed curtains you are passing. But until then, let your imagination take a dip into Rome Noir, and travel the city from its trunk roads to its highways, past the notorious Stazione Termini and the shadow of the iconic Colosseum, and through both the fashionable and sometimes undesirable areas that have inspired our writers.”
Dashiell Hammett and William Vollmann are just two treats in this stellar sequel to the smash-hit original volume of San Francisco Noir, which captures the dark mythology of a world-class locale.
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.
Featuring stories by: Ambrose Bierce, Frank Norris, Mark Twain, Jack London, Dashiell Hammett, Fletcher Flora, Bill Pronzini, Joe Gores, Don Herron, Ernest J. Gaines, Marcia Muller, Oscar Peñaranda, Janet Dawson, Seth Morgan, Craig Clevenger, William T. Vollmann, and John Shirley.
From the introduction by Peter Maravelis:
“San Francisco is a town made for noir. Long before Hammett’s muse seduced him with fog and mist to pen The Maltese Falcon, European explorers and Christian missionaries had already laid the groundwork for the genre. Just ask the Ohlone indigenous peoples. The city’s history is a shadowy one. It is founded upon the spilling of blood . . .
With the release of the first volume of San Francisco Noir, we brought together a team of seasoned writers to compose original works that gave the reader a sinister sense of the city. The success of that volume was encouraging and we have returned with a new task at hand: to present a collection of classic reprints, some hitherto buried by the passage of time, which depict a town riddled by inequity from its very beginnings . . .
We see San Francisco reflected in these tales. A city haunted by the specters of its past—a past that is quickly fleeting, leaving little trace as it disappears into oblivion. Perhaps the final vestiges of this town will someday be found in this handy little volume of pulp. Enjoy it while you can, before it, too, returns to dust.“
Istanbul Noir presents stories from a city at once ancient and modern, Asian and European, postcard-perfect and simmering with rage.
“Istanbul straddles the divide of Europe and Asia, and its polyglot population of 12 million seethes with political, religious, and sexual tensions, as shown in the 16 stories in this strong entry in Akashic’s noir anthology series . . . a welcome complement to the mostly historical mysteries set in Istanbul.” —Publishers Weekly
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: Müge Iplikçi, Behçet Çelik, Ismail Güzelsoy, Lydia Lunch, Hikmet Hükümenoglu, Riza Kiraç, Sadik Yemni, Baris Müstecaplioglu, Yasemin Aydinoglu, Feryal Tilmaç, Mehmet Bilâl, Inan Çetin, Mustafa Ziyalan, Jessica Lutz, Tarkan Barlas, and Algan Sezgintüredi.
From the introduction by Mustafa Ziyalan & Amy Spangler:
“As submissions for Istanbul Noir started to come in, it became increasingly clear to us that what was taking shape was not just some collection of dark stories set in old Stamboul, but a rich portrait of the city itself—or, at the very least, a particularly revealing series of snapshots. Mind you, it is a city shaped largely by the often vicious ebb and tide of the nation’s politics. Although Ankara may be the capital of the Republic of Turkey, the truth of the matter is, with a good twelve million people and thus a fifth of its population, Istanbul is the throbbing, often bleeding, heart of the country’s politics. And it shows . . .
Lying at the crossroads of East and West, Istanbul belongs to neither and to both, and it is precisely this elusive in-betweenness upon which the city thrives. No matter how much blood is spilled trying to conform to Western standards, they just don’t stick in this slippery city. Here, you don’t break the rules, you forge a loophole through them . . . A den of sin and a bastion of virtue, Istanbul is a fog-covered playground of power and resistance, denial and repression, and if you don’t know the tricks of the game, you’ll likely feel the urge to abandon your marbles and go.”
At the crossroads between East and West, Constantinople (now Istanbul) has been a seething melting pot of cultures for centuries. The stories collected here are set up and down both banks of the Bosporus. The authors do an excellent job introducing readers to a city unknown to many American readers, exploring the many issues of religion and culture that face modern Istanbul. Landscape is essential to these stories, all of which convince the reader that they couldn’t possibly have been set anywhere other than Istanbul. Recommend the collection to fans of Mehmet Murat Somer’s Prophet Murders (2008), also set in contemporary Istanbul. –Jessica Moyer
Review
“The authors do an excellent job introducing readers to a city unknown to many American readers, exploring the many issues of religion and culture that face modern Istanbul. Landscape is essential to these stories, all of which convince the reader that they couldn’t possibly have been set anywhere other than Istanbul.” ― Booklist
About the Author
MUSTAFA ZIYALAN was born in Zonguldak, on the Black Sea coast of Turkey. He worked as a general practitioner and coroner in a rural Anatolian village, and now lives and practices psychiatry in Brooklyn, NY. His poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in many literary periodicals, anthologies, and in book form. He is the author of the poetry book Kizil Kanca Siirleri, Yakilacak Kentlerden, a collection of travel writing and essays, and Su Kedileri, a collection of short fiction. He is the coeditor of Istanbul Noir.
All original stories from Paris’ finest authors, all translated from French.
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: Didier Daeninckx, Jean-Bernard Pouy, Marc Villard, Chantal Pelletier, Patrick Pécherot, DOA, Hervé Prudon, Dominique Mainard, Salim Bachi, Jérôme Leroy, Laurent Martin, and Christophe Mercier.
From the introduction by Aurélien Masson:
“Paris is a city that lives, and thus dies, every day. No point hiding behind history or war memories. What is a threat to Paris, to its noir dimension even, is potential “museumification,” the possibility of the city turning into a big theme park. In Paris, after all, everything is still there. All you have to do is look around with eyes wide open . . .
Beyond the lights, beyond the cafés and bars, Paris is sometimes like a grave. It’s a city you run away from, or at least dream of running away from. But on every street corner, the past jumps at your throat like a grimacing hyena . . .
You don’t inhabit your city, you dream it. All I can do now is invite you to enter the dream.”
The most uneven of the international entries in the series, Paris Noir brings together a collection of bleak and violent stories that attempt to show the dark side of the City of Lights. Modern issues of race and class, particularly among immigrants, feature heavily, as do prostitutes, thieves, and corrupt cops. Although most of the stories certainly capture the desperation at the heart of noir, they lack the strong sense of place that should be central to this geographically driven series. One notable exception is the story The Revenge of the Waiters, by Jean-Bernard Pouy. Thumbs up for noir; thumbs down for Paris. –Jessica Moyer
About the Author
AURÉLIEN MASSON was born in 1975 and quit academia at the age of twenty-four to take a trip around the world. After three years as an editorial assistant for la Serie Noire at Gallimard, one of France’s leading publishing companies, he became the series director. Masson is currently an editor at Les Arènes. He is the editor of Paris Noir.
This anthology spans more than a century of noir fiction set in the heart of the Big Apple—”17 sure winners” from Edith Wharton, Donald Westlake, and more (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
The island of Manhattan has been a breeding ground of crime, longing, and discontent since its earliest days as a city—and a natural setting for noir fiction since the genre was invented. And from Harlem to Greenwich Village to Wall Street, it has also been home to many a great writer. After the success of the first Manhattan Noir, dedicated to all-new stories, Lawrence Block combed through the borough’s long literary history to deliver this stellar collection of classics, even stretching the bounds of noir to include poems by Edgar Allen Poe and others.
Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics features entries by Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, O. Henry, Langston Hughes, Irwin Shaw, Jerome Weidman, Damon Runyon, Evan Hunter, Jerrold Mundis, Edgar Allan Poe, Horace Gregory, Geoffrey Bartholomew, Cornell Woolrich, Barry N. Malzberg, Clark Howard, Jerome Charyn, Donald E. Westlake, Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, and Susan Isaacs.
Lawrence D. Zeilinger 4 out of 5 stars 24th Book One of Best in Series Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2008 Format: Paperback Masterfully edited by Lawrence Block, Manhattan Noir 2 is a welcome addition to this terriffic series. Of its 17 short stories, what may have been Cornell Woolrich's last (first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1970) is by itself well worth the price of admission. This anthology features stories which first saw print over more than a 100-year time span, from 1891 to 2008. There also is a very short middle section with works by three poets. Poetry accounts for less than 5 per cent of my reading, but these are great. There is the predictable "Raven" by Poe and it isn't a stretch to include him as (perhaps the first) noir author. (What else but noir could you call say, "A Cask of Amontillado"? For the Love of God, Montressor!). But the two other poets represented are also excellent, especially the selections from Geoffrey Bartholomew's "The McSorley Poems" (2001) which made me want to seek out the entire volume. My favorite stories besides the Woolrich are Stephen Crane's very short "The Poker Game" (1902), Langston Hughes' "Spanish Blood" (1934). Damon Runyon's poignant "One-Eyed Johnny" (1941), and Evan Hunter's (Ed McBain's) gritty "The Last Spin" (1948) all in Part I, "The Old School". The stories in Part III are more modern, grouped under the heading "Darkness Visible". I liked all but one of these eight stories which range from 1969 to 2008. My three favorites were grand master Donald Westlake's "Love in the Lean Years", Joyce Carol Oates' "A Manhattan Romance" (which like two others feature a man running from the mob), and editor Lawrence Block's "In For a Penny". As always, kudos to Tim McLoughlin for creating this internationally acclaimed series. This book was released simultaneously with "D.C. Noir 2: The Classics" which is next on my must read list. Also forthcoming in the series are another 15 books, most of which have noir settings in foreign countries and are so titled.
