Customer Reviews

The Dark End of the Street: New Stories of Sex and Crime by Today's Top Authors

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

 

 

This is a collection of mystery stories from some of today's best writers. The theme of the stories revolves around sex and crime. The authors were allowed to run with this theme and some very different stories emerged. Some of the authors present us with story lines that at first seem very familiar, but hold onto your hat because the ride has just begun. By the end of the story we are in an entirely different ballpark, wondering how we got there. Some of the stories are outright violent or sexy and both can get very explicit. Many have a touch of the noir and are seldom sympathetic to the victim, although I did end up siding with one or two of the protagonists. Murder, identity theft, bondage, swindling, bigamy, and the pleasures and dangers to be found in your local beauty salon, all come into play to make this a fascinating collection.

Here's a collection of brilliant stories that lives up to its name. Every title in this group is very, very dark--or, as the French say, "noir." The concept was to take some of the leading names in crime fiction and some of our best "mainstream" authors and mix them together, blurring the already blurred line between them. This amazing volume proves, once and for all, that great writing is great writing, no matter what "niche" or "genre" you care to call it.

The best way to illustrate the success of this venture is simply to introduce the entire cast of contributors: Madison Smartt Bell, Lawrence Block, Stephen L. Carter, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Lynn Freed, James Grady, Amy Hempel, Janice Y. K. Lee, Jonathan Lethem, Laura Lippman, Patrick McCabe, Val McDermid, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Abraham Rodriguez Jr., S. J. Rozan, Jonathan Santlofer, and Edmund White. Rozan and Santlofer were the editors who conceived the project, and Santlofer's beautiful ink-and-pigment illustrations really set the mood. Between them, these 19 artists have come up with 19 dark, vivid, classy tales of sex and violence, and they're all so good that deciding which is your favorite will be quite a challenge. Bravo, everyone!

This collection definitely had some hits, but also some flops. From the title, I was looking forward to reading some dirty, flirty, naughty, and criminal stories. Some were, others not so much.

Some hits were:
ME and Mr Rafferty - short, sweet, and BADASS ending.
Perfect Triangle - about sex, crime, and strippers.
Midnight Stalking was fabulous, about sex and crime in 1939 (perfectly matches title of book).
The Salon - dirty and bad, in a good way.
Creative Writing Murders - deliciously sinister, and noone seen it coming.

Some flops were:
Dragon's Breath - just totally disconnected and bad.
Hereditary Thurifer - essentially, 28 wasted pages. It went nowhere, no crime, just bored out of my mind reading it.
Greed - about apples, husbands, and wives. Makes NO sense, another waste.
Deer - about a dead deer in a pool. What's the crime in that? No sex either.

There were a few bizarre ones thrown in:
Sunshine - about rape of a Baboon Girl - just so wrong in so many ways!
Toytown Assorted - a woman fantasizes about leaving her 50's life, killing her neighbor, and to go to Miami none of which actually happens. Reminds me of the movie "revolutionary road" without the suicide.
The Beheading - a young girl dreams that her neighbor is a child killer. WHAT? no seriously.... what young girl dreams that up? But that's why it totally deserves to be in this collection.
Celebration - man gets trapped by nympho and looses his former life. Gross yes brutal yes, but good? not really.

Then there were stories that actually made you think:
Scenarios - a unique spin on an author's input.
The Story of the Stabbing - this was long but very much worth it. It shows the progression of a stabbing crime in NYC from the 70's through the family of a young girl. Every year the stories get more and more exaggerated, racist, absurd, till they reach the point of blatant lie and more.
Daybreak - about a Chinese girl sold as a mail order bride and manages to kill her captor before he kills her. GREAT revenge, love the inside from inside the minds of BOTH characters. Unhappy with the ending, but oh well. Still a very good read.

This one story I have to separate from the rest not bc it's good or bad, but bc it's sooo hyper local: Ben and Andrea and Evelyn and Ben. About a suburban man who works for his wife's father's company. He slaves away in disgusting conditions while the father reaps all the benefits, and decorates his daughter with them, which of course hurts Ben. This is just so twisted. It's hyper local bc many of the towns they mention are Long Island and NYC towns.

There were a few other stories that i didn't mention, but these are the ones that really stood out.

I give this collection a 3 out of 5 bc there were some REALLY good stories - exactly what the title ordered. But there were also boring confusing endless flops. I did expect more "film noir" woman-comes-to-detective- to-investigate-a-cheating-husband type of stories, but naaaaaah nothing like that at all. I think if the editors choose to create a second volume to this collection they need to get REAL dirty or i'm afraid it will be a dull read.

What a perfect gem of a book. I cannot wait and hope for the next collection edited by Jonathan Santlofer and S.J Rozan!
Every story was unique and interesting and the illustrations added so much to the book.
Bravo and brava to the editors!
Jane O'Keefe

The writing is Ok I guess; but I found the stories boring, predominately Femdom and mild light porn...no crime noir at all. I wouldn't buy this book.

I picked this up because I wanted to read the story by Val McDermid. That particular story was okay but didn't blow me away. McDermid is a wonderful stylist, but there wasn't much of a payoff. My favorite stories in here are those by Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, and Laura Lippman. My least favorite were written by Patrick McCabe, Francine Prose, Abraham Rodriguez Jr., and Joyce Carol Oates (she has to be the most annoying contemporary writer in existence.)

It's still worth picking up and reading a chapter or two at night. It's a great concept for a book: "New Stories of Sex and Crime By Today's Top Authors."

I love short story anthologies since they introduce me to new authors but in an abbreviated form--if I don't like the author, I'm not all that committed. That being said, I liked about a third of these stories. The ones that stood out included those by Laura Lippman, Lawrence Block and Lee Childs and especially one by Jonathan Lethem who has a very unusual but refreshing way of looking at things as mundane as going to the beauty salon.

I love crime noir, so maybe I'm a bit biased, but I truly enjoyed this collection of new short stories by some well known authors.

Each tale has its own unique voice and style, sometimes with subtle plot twists, other times with surprise endings that shock the reader out of their chair. Peppered throughout the volume is original artwork that adds to the flavor of the book, although, keep in mind that the art is independent of the stories.

Crime and short story fans can safely add this enjoyable work to their shelf.

This collection of short stores is bound together by the common topics of sex and crime. It consists of nineteen stores by as many authors. The stories range from very subtle to in-your-face blatant. I had read several of the authors but many were new to me.

Overall I found this to be a very enjoyable collection and give it high marks. A few of the stories were lost on me, but I suspect the fault was with the reader rather than the author. The stories that I liked I liked very much. I would not hesitate to recommend it.

The volume is enhanced by illustrations in an arresting black and white wash that carries a strong feeling of film noir.

S. J. Rozan and Jonathan Santlofer invited a number of good writers to write a story that included sex and crime. The result was the story collection entitled, The Dark End of the Street. This is one of the best collections of mystery short stories I've read recently. Some of the authors who submitted stories are literary writers, such as Jonathan Lethem. Others are superb genre writers like Lawrence Block.
The amount of sex and crime varies by story. In some either one or the other dominates the story, and in others the two factors are equally balanced. Some have ingenious plots, such as Laura Lippmann's "Tricks." Others are more character driven, such as Francine Prose's "The Beheading." Either way, the reader will have a wonderful time enjoying the puzzles, the suspense and the intriguing characters these fabulous authors have created.
If you're a fan of mystery short stories, pick this one up. It's a great ride.