Customer Reviews

Seattle Noir (Akashic Noir)

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As a reader with Native American ties, I was gripped immediately by the very first story, Blood Tide by Thomas Hopp. For once, somebody has written about the all-but-forgotten Duwamish Indian Tribe that inhabited Seattle long before its current culture of Boeing bombers, Starbucks caffeine, and Microsoft billionaires. I was overwhelmed to read of a Native salmon fisherman on a polluted river in a small boat dwarfed by giant barges going by under an overarching gray concrete bridge with freight trains blasting their horns among the scrapyards on the banks of the river. If that isn't Noir, I don't know what is.

Other stories in the book may be more or less Noir, but they're all entertaining in their own way. Another favorite was tough guy Jake Rossiter and a femme fatale in Curt Colbert's Till Death Do Us. Note to the Editors: Any plans for a sequel?

These fourteen Noir entries that focus on Seattle are all well written with most being super. The stories can be divided between historical and recent/current as the city has dramatically changed from a kick butt blue collar port city to a white collar ethnic diverse urban center which is home to giant corporations. For instance, before coffee was king, rum was king. The comparison between the fourteen contributions clearly captures that seemingly radical turn around, but in fact the short stories show the slower pace of change starting with Boeing in the 1950s. Mr. Colbert breaks the book into four segments. "Gone South" contains four tales that look deep into ethnicity. "What Comes Around" includes three entries that focus on modern day moral issues? "Love Is a Four Letter Word" has three tales pf how love can go wrong even in a perfect setting. Finally the last chapter includes four shorts that take the audience "To the Limits" that not everything is kosher. My favorites are the historical entries such as "Paper Son" by Brian Thornton who looks deep at late nineteenth century corruption and the retribution tales of the last section as we all at times want to see someone else get what is coming to them. All of the tales are fun as the city proves a perfect location as the "Center of the Universe" (by Robert Lopresti) for a Noir collection as affirmed by these consistently strong but differing contributions.

Harriet Klausner

These short stories are a fun read for anyone who lives in or loves Seattle. The stories span multiple locations in the city and time periods. While these stories may not be as much interest to readers outside of Seattle, each story is well crafted and should delight mystery fans.

As a big noir fan about to move to Seattle, I was excited to soak up some local flavor from this collection. Denied! Few of the contributors have any background in crime fiction (one is known primarily as a cookbook author). Even fewer have any idea how to build suspense, portray distinctive characters, or craft involving plots that turn on high-stakes moral dilemmas. And if you can't do any of that, you have no business messing with noir.

I can see the thought process now: "Ooh, somebody's looking for submissions for a Seattle crime fiction book? Perfect time to dust off my old manuscript about a sassy yet warm intergenerational group of Native American women! I'll just drop a .45 into the last scene and bingo, it's 'noir'!" Saints preserve us from "literary" wanna-bes "slumming it" with crime fiction.

Who says Seattle can't be the setting for stories of the Noir genre? It's dark and gloomy there most of the year, or so the natives would like you to think. This collection covers a wide gamut of interesting stories and situations. The dozen or so tales of crime and treachery are kicked off ably by newcomer Thomas Hopp, whose "Blood Tide" combines elements of murder, Native American culture, and modern biotechnology to present an impressive cocktail of possibilities surrounding the death of a geoduck digger (A what? you ask. Read the story). Another favorite was Skye Moody's freaky-geeky excursion to the world of little people in "The Magnolia Bluff." A number of these authors have also recently appeared in another collection, West Coast Crime Wave (Crime Wave Anthologies). Hopp's follow-on to "Blood Tide," "The Ghost Trees" is there.

Seattle is a natural setting for noir stories. It's cloudy and drizzles most of the time. Some of that comes through in this collection of dark mystery stories. Each story is different, not surprisingly as they come from so many different authors, and some are more noir than others, but all have their intriguing moments. I was engaged the whole way, from Thomas Hopp's opener to G.M. Ford's closer.

Life has gotten busy and I haven't had time to read this yet. But, now that the work is done I am looking forward to sitting in the sun and READING. And this is first on my list. When I read the initial introduction of the book I thought it was a book of true stories of Seattle. But, just to my liking, it is fictional stories that take place in various areas of Seattle. Can't wait to get lost in the city at night.