Customer Reviews

Detroit Noir (Akashic Noir)

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This is the first collection from Akashic'a Noir series I have purchased. I grew up in Detroit, on the northeast side, and felt the authors painted a very accurate picture, for the most part, of the city and its various locales. The highlights of the book are the stories by Loren Estelman, Dorene O'Brien, Megan Abbott and Michael Zadoorian, which came across as nuanced and layered in comparison to several others. Dead Man's Boat, the story by Peter Markus, is told in a very original voice also and has a beautiful closing that left me wanting to read more of his work. Only a scant three of the stories seemed like odd socks in the drawer, trying to hard to create requirements of the noir genre to be included, and makes one wonder why Olsen and Hocking found them up to snuff. In the end though, so many of the stories satisfy, that I feel this is a book of short stories worth adding to your shelf.

Detroit is definitely a city that lends itself to dark tales. I liked this collection and thought it captured the mood of the city very well. It was nice to see some of the literary talent coming out of the Motor City together in one volume. It will be a quick but absorbing read.

Detroit Noir lives up to the promise of the earlier books in the series. Leading off with stories by P.J. Parrish, Loren Estleman, and Joyce Carol Oates, this volume starts at a high level and, although I knew few of the following writers, the stories and writing skill don't sag at all.
Each writer shows the darker side of a particular Detroit landmark or district, sometimes with humor, but usually with the kind of bleakness that befits a book with "Noir" in the title.

Some of the stories aren't technically crime or mystery, but they convey such a powerful sense of Urban Blight (Motor City Malaise?) that they fit in with those of the better known writers. I plan to start combing bookshelves for other work by the people I've discovered thanks to this collection.

The most dreary of all the Noir collections I have read. No structure to the whole mess. Try NY Noir for a real read.