Portland Noir

April 20, 2009
The home of Chuck Palahniuk, Powell's City of Books—and the place with more strip clubs per capita than any other city in America—gets its due in this splendid entry in Akashic's noir series. Portland natives will appreciate shout-outs to lesser-known landmarks, like the weekly showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show
at the Clinton Street Theater in Ariel Gore's “Water Under the Bridge,†while outsiders may recognize some of the city's more famous draws, like the Shanghai Tunnels in Gigi Little's “Shanghaied.†Standouts include Floyd Skloot's eerily poignant “Alzheimer's Noirâ€; Jonathan Selwood's “The Wrong House,†about a drug deal that goes horribly awry; and Bill Cameron's “Coffee, Black,†which features not only his series regular, retired detective Thomas “Skin†Kadash, but also one of the city's most prized commodities: coffee. The 16 stories in this anthology demonstrate that a little rain is never a deterrent to murder.