DC Noir (Akashic Noir) (Paperback)

~ George Pelecanos (Editor)
Key Phrases: new dragon, maroon rug, Father Dave, Detective Mayfield, Capitol Hill (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While only a few of the contributors, such as editor Pelecanos, will be familiar to most readers, every story in this all-original noir anthology set in the nation's capital is well written, even if each captures the cynicism and despair of classic noir with varying success. Highlights include Pelecanos's "The Confidential Informant" and Laura Lippman's "A.R.M. and the Woman," though these could have been set elsewhere with little change to characters or plot. Jim Fusilli's "The Dupe," a contemporary political tale of betrayal, best makes use of the Washington setting. Despite Pelecanos's claim in his introduction that it's too easy to call the city polarized, rarely do the paths of the haves and the have-nots cross in these 16 tales, 10 of which have their crimes occur in the prosperous Northwest section of D.C. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

The short stories in D.C. Noir (Akashic; paperback), edited by George Pelecanos, are grouped by subject matter and neighborhood, allowing the reader to take a felonious tour of the city. Interested in the gritty side of Georgetown? Try Robert Andrews's "Solomon's Alley." Not so sure Mt. Pleasant always lives up to its name? You'll find confirmation in (The Washington Post's) Ruben Castaneda's "Coyote Hunt." You can travel vicariously to the mean streets of Petworth and Chevy Chase, Logan Circle and the Hill -- and even to K Street, maybe not the meanest but probably the crookedest area of all, thanks to formidable recent efforts by corrupt lobbyists. The noir-dealing contributors include Pelecanos himself; mystery novelist Laura Lippman, on leave from her home turf in Baltimore; and former Book World contributing editor Jennifer Howard.

Also among them is the veteran James Grady, best known for his novel Six Days of the Condor; his "The Bottom Line" is a tour de force of narrative bravado. A story of double-dealing on Capitol Hill, it crams enough plot to power a full-length novel into a mere 30 pages. From its opening sentence -- "The Capitol building glowed in the night like a white icing cake" -- to the surprises at its finish line, this is a story that never stops barreling along. Grady seems to draw on his own resumé (former Senate aide) when he sums up a certain kind of Hill staffer's career in a single sentence: "Victory at work that day meant he . . . brokered a deal to give air polluters a six percent rollback of fines instead of the seventeen percent proposed by his Senator's opponents."

Richard Currey's "The Names of the Lost" encompasses both local details and international angst. In mid-winter its protagonist, Liebmann, takes a long walk through Shepherd Park, where he owns a liquor store. He crosses Georgia Avenue, follows the fence line of Walter Reed Hospital, returns to the intersection of Georgia and Alaska Avenues and Kalmia Road. All the while he carries with him memories of Auschwitz, along with a tattooed number. Crime happens in this story, but the pace here is measured and ruminative -- a match for the progress of an old man making his way through a tough neighborhood when he ought to know better than to be out and about.

Crime in All Four Quadrants
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 325 pages
• Publisher: Akashic Books; First Edition. states edition (February 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888451904
• ISBN-13: 978-1888451900
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #258,786 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The Noir Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars D.C. Noir, February 16, 2006

By	Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (VINE VOICE)

I felt a strong sense of recognition in reading these stories of the underside of life in Washington D.C. "D.C. Noir" is an anthology of sixteen new stories by as many authors chosen and edited by the noted author of crime and detective novels, George Pelecanos. Pelecanos also contributed one of the stories to this collection.

There is an astonishing sense of place in this collection for a city in which I have lived and walked for many years. I live near a large thoroughfare, Georgia Avenue, which stretches from downtown Washington into Silver Spring, Maryland and beyond. Georgia Avenue is a forbidding street of small shops, liquor stores and bars, eateries and gas stations that appears perpetually in need of renewal. The Walter Reed Military Hospital is located on the upper end of Georgia Avenue with, about one mile north, a small shopping mall, apartments, and several liquor stores on the border with Maryland.

Richard Curry's story, "The Names of the Lost" describes this portion of Georgia Avenue, the stores, the residents, the apartments, the library, and the bus routes with great immediacy. The story involves a confrontation between an aging Holocaust survivor, and proprietor of a liquor store, and a young thug. I felt I knew the steet, the scene, the places, and the people as I read. Another fine story, "The Light and the Dark" by Robert Wisdom describes the community of Petworth, a bit further to the South (in the direction of downtown D.C.) on Georgia Avenue. I again felt a sense of recognition and understanding in seeing the street and landmark names of places I know, where I have walked on occasion and ridden through countless times.

I felt this recognition of place in several other stories. Jennifer Howard's "East of the Sun" describes the community near Pennsylvania and Potomac Ave, S.E., an uptempo and rather treacherous neighborhood where I also lived and walked for many years. Jim Patton's story of D.C.'s Chinatown and its environs, "Capital of the World" is highly realistic in its depiction of bars and streets in this downtown yet secretive portion of the Capital City. Ruben Casteneda's "Coyote Hunt" describes the Adams Morgan community along sixteenth street and the diversity created by its recent influx of Hispanic immigrants. Laura Lippman's story, "A.R.M and the Woman", unlike most of its companions describes an incident in the lives of upscale residents of Chevy Chase N.W. with characteristic and believable portraits of both people and place. David Slater's story "Stuffed", describes Thomas Circle, around 14th Street, for many years the center of D.C. red-light district and now becoming a trendy neighborhood in transition.

There are a number of stories of parts of the city I don't know as well but which are highly descriptive, tough, and convincing. Jim Beane's "Jeanette" which takes place in a part of town known as Deanwood, has mean, sharply portrayed characters and is among the best of these. Lester Irby's "God don't like ugly" with its picture of local dives and clubs, also has a strong sense of realism and faithfulness to its subject. Pelecanos's story "The Confidential Informant" and a story by Quentin Peterson, "Cold as Ice" also describe well the places, streets, and persons of D.C.'s world of gangs, drugs, and shootings.

There are two stories which deal with the political life of the Nation's capital: James Grady's "The Bottom Line" and Jim Fusilli's "The Dupe". These are good well-paced stories but I found them of less interest than the stories set in the local neighborhoods of Washington D.C., among people and places that tourists rarely see.

The anthology includes brief biographical notes of each of the authors, whose backgrounds are as diverse and varied as the city celebrated in their stories. This is a book for walkers on city streets and for those who like fast-paced stories with a sense of urban place and life.

Robin Friedman

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scary and Fun, April 7, 2006

By	Cstro "A Reader" (Baltimore) - See all my reviews

I completely enjoyed this book. I grew up in the DC area and recognized all of the neighborhoods in which the stories took place. I gave the book to my native Baltimore friend and she loved it too. The stories, while very dark, were well written and riveting. Now my friend and I are dying to get Baltimore Noir. That will be tomorrow at the panel discussion at the Pratt Library. Buy these Noir books, you won't be sorry!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Real D.C., January 14, 2007

By	A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (VINE VOICE)

This Washington, D.C. entry in Akashic Books' series of city-specific crime anthologies could have no better editor than the George Pelecanos, author of 13 crime novels set in and around the nation's capital. And for the most part, the stories here mimic Pelecanos' M.O. by ignoring the corridors of power one sees on TV, and taking one into the neighborhoods, history, and lives of D.C.'s true residents. The stories are loosely grouped into four sections.

The first section, "D.C. Uncovered", is probably the best, featuring three excellent stories. Pelecanos leads off with a great portrait of a Park View hustler helping the police as "The Confidential Informant." Kenji Jasper turns the clock back to 1993 in "First", an excellent economical tale of boys trying to be hoodlums back when "D.C." meant "Dodge City". Jim Patton's "Capital of the World" finds a moonlighting cop in one Chinatown's rapidly disappearing seedy nightspots and mixes him up with a Moldovan sex slave, however the story's a little too much of a message about human trafficking to be truly effective. Probably the best story in the whole book is Richard Currey's "The Names of the Lost", about a Holocaust survivor who owns a Georgia liquor store and his confrontation with a young thug in 1968. Like the best of Pelecanos' work, the story paints a vivid picture of the neighborhood and its social history, all while packing a nice melancholy punch.

The second section is "Streets and Alleys", which starts with former Washington Post editor Jennifer Howard's "East of the Sun." Set in a part of Capitol Hill that has been rapidly gentrifying over the last decade (and is home to Howard), it's a rather awkward story about a white family and their interaction with the local drug dealer. Novelist Robert Andrews contributes "Solomon's Alley", an excellent little piece set in Georgetown which encompasses a homeless man, a Nigerian sidewalk vendor, and some nasty Somalis. TV and film actor Robert Wisdom's "The Light and the Dark" visits the Petworth neighborhood in the 1950s, where he grew up amidst other Caribbean immigrants in his parents' rooming house. Baltimore's doyenne of crime writing, Laura Lippman, contributes"A.R.M. and the Woman." This rather ordinary "black widow" tale serves mostly to showcase the wealthy world of the city's upper NW.

Next is the "Cops and Robbers" section, led off by ex-DC cop Quintin Peterson's effective, if somewhat pulpy, procedural exploration of witness intimidation in "Cold As Ice." Lester Irby spent the last of his 30 years in federal prisons writing "God Don't Like Ugly," an extremely pulpy 1970-set story about drug dealers, a woman in their midst, and all the angles. Former Washington Post crime reporter Reuben Castaneda uses the 1991 Mt. Pleasant Riots (between Latino immigrants and the police) as the backdrop for a murder. The 1968 riots hover in the background of Jim Beane's "Jeanette", a fairly typical femme fatale-driven story about a young man trying to meet his woman's expectations.

"The Hill and The Edge" rounds things off, starting with James ("Three Days of the Condor") Grady's "The Bottom Line." While the story does a workmanlike job of getting into Capitol Hill corruption, staffers, and lobbyists, this is an aspect of the city that has been covered to death, and the story doesn't add much one's understanding of the city. David Slater's "Stiffed" follows a cook/bartender as he endures a crappy day at a Thomas Circle dive only to end it in a very satisfying manner. "Noir Soul" writer Norman Kelley contributes "The Messenger of Soulville", a somewhat clunky '60s-set story involving a local record mogul, the Mafia, and the Nation of Islam. The book ends with Jim Fussilli's disappointing excursion into the K St. machine of lobbyists, journalists, and politicians in "The Dupe."

Overall, definitely worth reading if you're interested in an alternative view of the nation's capital.