Brooklyn Noir (Paperback)

~ Tim McLoughlin (Editor) "Carmody came up from the subway before dusk, and his eyeglasses fogged in the sudden cold..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Wild Willy, Bay Ridge (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In McLoughlin's entertaining if uneven anthology of 19 brand new hard-boiled and twisted tales, each set in a different Brooklyn neighborhood, the best way to get to know New York City's most diverse borough is either to be dead or to cause someone else to assume that state in as grisly a manner as possible. This might be achieved via the old school method—for instance, with a nickel-plated revolver and a heart full of malice, as in "The Book Signing," Pete Hamill's lyrical opener about a Park Slope "ex-pat" writer who revisits his now-gentrified neighborhood only to step inadvertently into a past he'd long thought buried and forgotten. Or death might arrive in a new-fangled mode, with a scalpel and an Internet connection, as in Arthur Nersesian's compelling "Hunter/ Trapper," in which a Brooklyn Heights Web stalker makes the serious mistake of failing to secure his stalkee securely before ravishment. If a few weaker entries exploit the borough as an arbitrary setting for standard cops-and-robbers fare, the best stories concern people in the present coming to terms with the past. In McLoughlin's evocative "When All This Was Bay Ridge," a Sunset Park cop's son struggles with his dead father's secret history, while Maggie Estep's "Triple Harrison," depicting a squatter who tends a broken-down race horse in the abandoned wastes of East New York, takes the prize as the book's weirdest tale.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

It's all Brooklyn--Bensonhurst and Brighton Beach, Red Hook and Crown Heights--in this atmospheric collection of noir tales. The sound is right, too, from the understated staccato of old lost souls to the jiving rap of younger ones. Abraham Pearl manages a Jewish gumshoe in "Hasidic Noir," and Neal Pollack makes a carousel ride and a scavenger hunt as sinister as midnight. Thomas Morrissey does a weird tale of vampire cookies in "Can't Catch Me." The language is richly foul, and so is much of the sex in these 19 stories, divided into four sections from "Old School Brooklyn" to "Cops & Robbers." Brooklyn's Italian and Irish belly up to the bar with Russians, Puerto Ricans, and Rastas. Pete Hamill, probably the biggest name here, opens with a signature tale for both himself and the genre, deceptively called "The Book Signing." GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Akashic Books (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888451580
• ISBN-13: 978-1888451580
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #166,450 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Noir Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brooklyn IS Noir, T'roo an' T'roo, July 20, 2004

By	Brian Sawyer (Westford, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've never read much crime fiction, or so-called "genre" fiction of any kind, really, but I'd heard such good things about Brooklyn Noir that I decided to give it a try. Plus, it seemed like a good summer read and a good way to get away from work for a while. I was not disappointed.

This book is a lot of fun and reminds me a bit of McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, the only other genre compilation I've read in recent years. However, unlike Thrilling Tales, Brooklyn Noir doesn't have any clunkers. (Of course, there's another big difference: namely, it's all crime fiction and--with one delightful exception that I leave you to discover on your own--it doesn't have any fantastical or supernatural stories).

Every story is a pleasure to read and is just the right length. Plots or styles that I have a feeling might grow stale or a little tiresome in a full-blown novel are perfect for the 15 to 20 pages that make up most of the stories in this collection. Cops and robbers, thugs and gumshoes--this book is just bursting with cool and feels like such a guilty pleasure for an avid reader of so-called "literary fiction." I read most of the stories before going to bed at night, and I felt like an excited little kid the whole time, nestled under the covers with a flashlight and just hoping that my mom wouldn't come in and tell me it was time for me to get to sleep. Each story is so compelling that it's tough to put the book down when you finish the one you're reading.

The seedy setting of Brooklyn is so effective and so masterfully crafted that someone like me with little background in either crime fiction or Brooklyn can't help but wonder if noir itself would even be possible in another city. Though each writer makes the city his or her own, they all give the impression that Brooklyn is noir, and vice versa; the two cannot be disjoined. The TOC includes a nice touch, though: it provides the particular neighborhood in which each story is set, showing that though Brooklyn has unifying characteristics and a general inclination to noir, it also contains multitudes. Think that Park Slope is the same as Downtown? Sunset Park and Canarsie no different than Coney Island, Brooklyn Heights, Bensonhurst, or Brighton Beach? Think again, and get ready to witness the differences.

The epigraph that begins the book, "Dere's no guy livin' dat knows Brooklyn t'roo an' t'roo, because it'd take a guy a lifetime just to find his way aroun' duh f---- town" (from Thomas Wolfe's "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn"), makes a good point. But by the time you finish the book, you feel like you do in fact know the city t'roo an' t'roo. Perhaps that's because you don't have the word of one guy. You have 20 unique perspectives, each with a different voice, angle, agenda, and incredible story to tell.

I won't single out any stories for special attention, because I really don't want to run the risk of leaving some of the best stories out. They really are all worth reading. Just get this book and read them all. Have fun!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enthusiastically recommended compendium of original stories, August 10, 2004

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Expertly compiled and edited by Tim McLoughlin, Brooklyn Noir is an enthusiastically recommended compendium of original stories by twenty of today's best writers against the background of Brooklyn -- one of the toughest borough's of New York City. From Coney Island, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Bay Ridge, To Red Hook, Bushwick, Sheepshead Bay, and Park Slope, these are stories enriched with historical and criminal largesse with each tale set in a distinct Brooklyn neighborhood. From Pete Hamill's "The Book Signing", to Norman Kelley's "The Code", to Lou Manfredo's "Case Closed", to C. J. Sullivan's "Slipping into Darkness", Brooklyn Noir serves up deftly told tales that will linger in the mind's imagination long after this outstanding anthology is placed back upon the shelf.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BOOKING BROOKLYN, July 1, 2004

By	F. C. RYAN (BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, NEW YORK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Mr. McLoughlin's second book is bound to outsell his first. Why? He has put his heart into this book. Mr. McLoughlin's book tells it as it is, and it is hard to put the book down. Mr. McLoughlin knows about crime, having worked for many years in the criminal justice system. Run, don't walk, to your local bookstore to get it, or order it online. You won't be let down.

Other crime books I recommend are: 1) THE KILLS, by Linda Fairstein. 2) THE BONE VAULT, by Linda Fairstein. 3) I AM THE CENTRAL PARK JOGGER, by Trisha Meili. (now in paperback). 4) 25 TO LIFE, by Rt. Hon. Leslie Crocker Snyder.