Customer Reviews

Boston Noir (Akashic Noir)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the book's introduction, Lehane adds his own twist to a description of the noir genre. He argues that it represents uniquely working class tragedy, a story of loss and of people who are unable to roll with the changing times. "No art form that I know of," submits Lehane, "rages against the machine more violently than noir." He adds, however, that the Boston locations in this volume add an unexpected strain of humor to the mix.

Although the entries are a bit uneven, I found some of them very entertaining. In just a few pages of the first story, Lynne Heitman sets the mood, creates dramatic tension and builds a nice visual image of the Financial District office in which the action occurs. A woman who is passed over for a job has shot her boss and is holding her rival hostage. The author manages simultaneously to create a feeling of sympathy and vague dislike for the captive businessman. The author saves her best lines to describe the woman with the gun: "This suit has never really fit, and the dark blue Tahari would have hidden the blood stains better."

Dennis Lehane's story features a confrontation between small time hoods in Dorchester. The story has atmosphere, compelling characters and classic noir visuals like: "The street signs and window panes rattled, and Bob thought how winter lost any meaning the day you last rode a sled. Any meaning but grey."

My other favorite was Brendan DuBois' Dark Island. Locales in the story include Scollay Square, the waterfront and one of the small islands off the coast of the city. In a staple beginning of the genre, a mysterious woman walks into the office of a gumshoe. She is pretty, needs help and is not what she seems.

These stories takes place in various locations in and around Boston (Beacon Hill, the North End, Watertown) and are from different time periods (colonial, post WW II, the sixties). I like the genre, am a fan of Lehane and come from Boston. For me, this book was a nice blend of all three.

"Boston Noir" is, by my count, the thirty-fourth book in a series of darkish short story collections set in major cities around the world. Each of the featured cities has distinct enough a personality to set a unique tone for its particular volume, even, at times becoming as much a character in the stories as the chief protagonists themselves.

This particular volume is home to eleven short stories, some of which have been written by authors already well known to genre readers and others by lesser known writers. Dennis Lehane contributes both the book's introduction and a story entitled "Animal Rescue" about a seemingly simple man with an unexpected hard edge to him. Other contributors include: Stewart O'Nan, Lynne Heitman, Jim Fusilli, Patricia Powell and John Dufresne.

The stories have a tough, sometimes depressing, tone to them but they are kept lighter than they otherwise would have been by the bits of ironic humor that sneak into them when least expected. Even readers unfamiliar with the term "noir," will be tempted to explore the collection after reading Lehane's definition of what it takes to be a "noir hero" - "In Shakespeare, tragic heroes fall from mountaintops; in noir, they fall from curbs. Tragic heroes die in a blaze of their own ill-advised conflation. Noir heroes die clutching fences or crumpled in trunks or, in the case of poor Eddie Coyle, they simply doze off drunkenly in a car and take one in the back of the head before they have a chance to wake up again. No wise words, no music swelling on the soundtrack."

These are stories about white collar people who finally reach their breaking point; people who see an opportunity to stick it to the system and grab the chance to do so; people eager to profit from the deaths of others; hard people that suffer because of soft hearts; inept criminals who somehow manage to bluff their way through; and the worst kind of sex predator - something for everyone.

Stories collected from so many different writers will, of course, vary in quality, and those gathered in "Boston Noir" are no exception to that rule. What is rather unusual, unfortunately, is that the quality of these stories range all the way from very effective to almost incomprehensible, meaning that most readers are likely to consider "Boston Noir" to be, at best, an average collection of short stories.

This gem of a book is worth every penny. Each story is set in a different part of Boston and its suburbs. The authors who contribute to this book are the creme de la creme of contemporary mystery writers, including Dennis Lehane, Stewart O'Nan and Brendan DuBois. This is perfect bedtime reading for anyone who loves the city of Boston, its quirks, its culture, its people and its flavor. You won't be disappointed.

My book club read this recently and most of us agree that the stories in the first half of the book are great, but the stories toward the latter half are not nearly as engrossing. Overall I would recommend this as a fun and easy read for someone with noir-ish tendencies, and/or someone interested in books with a Boston flavor. The stories are quite varied, in style, time-period, and general content, and several of the stories one wouldn't necessarily strike you as "noir" had you read it outside of this collection.

BOSTON NOIR offers brand new stories by Patricial Powell, Lynne Heitman, Don Lee and others, all centered around Boston mysteries and topics. Humor, mystery, and stories set in distinct neighborhoods or locations in Boston will especially appeal to mystery enthusiasts familiar with the city's streets and culture.

Dennis LeHane is a favorite author of mine, although he only contributed one short story to this collection. Some of the stories were very, very good and some were not, but that's the beauty of a collection, isn't it? You get exposure to other authors who you might not have heard of before. It's well worth reading. I highly recommend some of the other LeHane books, like Shutter Island, Mystic River, and all his Kenzie/Gennaro books. I hope he gets back to his good stuff and leaves off the "Given Day" and other attempts into different styles of writing. He is excellent in his area!

If you've ever lived in, worked in, laughed in, cried in, or even just visited Boston to see what was there, this book is a must-read..... the darker side of the city shines through (sometimes in laughter, sometimes in tears), in this set of short stories by some of the best in the business.... my thanks to Dennis LeHane for helping to put this together..... reading through the entire set of city "noirs" is very high on my list of reading priorities.... buy it, you'll love it!

I always read Dennis Lehane but--I found Boston Noir hard to get through. Maybe it is because I don't have much knowlege of Boston. While I think it was an excellent book, it took a lot of serious reading.

mw

Probably three and a half stars, this was not my favorite of this noir series. I like these books for the exposure to various authors that a reader may have missed and this is no exception. BOSTON NOIR had some very fine stories like Heitman's, Lehane's, and DuBois's, but others fell flat for me. I must recommend this series though; to meet fine authors this is the way. RECOMMENDED, the series.

I love Boston. I love murder mysteries. Big fan of Lynne Heitman's (she wrote the first story). I'd say more but I need to go make a nice cup of tea and get back to my current favorite book.