Twin Cities Noir

October 7, 2013
The three new stories included in this expanded edition of the Akashic noir anthology devoted to Minneapolis and St. Paul, originally published in 2006, add only marginal value. Grouped under the section titled "Star of the North," they are John Jodzio's "Someday All of This Will Probably Be Yours," about a scamming couple's plans suffering a sudden change; Peter Schilling Jr.'s "16mm Blues," in which rare-film preservation leads to murder; and Tom Kaczynski's bizarre story in graphic-novel form, "Skyway Sleepless," about a city's skyway system taking on a life of its own. Of the 15 selections comprising the original volume, contemporary stories by David Housewright, William Kent Krueger, Ellen Hart, and Mary Sharratt are stand-outs. Also notable are Gary Bush and Larry Millett's respective tales exploring the cities' rough-and-tumble past. Crime fans who missed the first round will find this expanded version worthwhile.

April 3, 2006
Minneapolis and St. Paul are the focus of Akashic's ninth anthology in its popular series (Brooklyn Noir
, etc.) to marry crime and place. The eclectic group of 15 contributors includes such well-known mystery writers as David Housewright, whose "Mai-Nu's Window" gets the volume off to a strong start, and William Kent Krueger, whose "Bums" is a classic noir tale of folly and futility. A couple of authors manage to create stories that tantalize and give readers something to think about long after the ending. Ellen Hart's "Blind Sided" and Mary Sharratt's "Taking the Bullets Out" both pull off that trick. Gary Bush ("If You Harm Us") and Larry Millett ("The Brewer's Son") reach into the cities' rough and tumble past for their inspiration and turn out entertaining stories of corruption and gangsterism. Steve Thayer's "Hi, I'm God" starts as a gripping tale of young bravado and morphs into an otherworldly farce. Both K.J. Erickson ("Noir Neige") and Judith Guest ("Eminent Domain") show that noir can be humorous and still have bite.

June 1, 2006
Launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir, Akashic -s series of regional noir anthologies continues with these welcome eighth and ninth entries. Who better to edit the volume dedicated to Baltimore than Lippman, a former Baltimore Sun reporter whose popular Tess Monaghan series is set in Charm City (also known as -Bulletmore - for its steadfastly high homicide rate)? Lippman also contributes the first and one of the best of the 16 original stories, -Easy as A-B-C, - about a contractor who puts his building skills to use when his affair with his client ends. Charlie Stella -s on-target dialog spotlights mob efficiency in -Ode to the O -s. -, while the Fell -s Point area is the locale for two tales: Rob Hiassen -s -Over My Dead Body, - which revolves around the area -s gentrification, and Dan Fesperman -s -As Seen on TV, - in which a Balkan hit man doesn -t know that his favorite show, Homicide, which was set here, has long since been cancelled. Other writers include Marcia Talley, Sujata Massey, Tim Cockey, Jim Fusilli, and Homicide author David Simon.

Once known as the Saintly City, St. Paul, MN, sheltered criminals on the run during the 1920s and 1930s, and in the mid-1990s Minneapolis was tagged as -Murderapolis - for a rash of killings one summer. So these wholesome Midwestern metropolises have their underside, as several good authors -Pete Hautman, K.J. Erickson, Larry Millett, David Housewright, William Kent Krueger, and Mary Logue -reveal in this collection. A famous writer finds a satisfying means of dealing with the hijacking of her web domain name in Judith Guest -s captivating -Eminent Domain, - and in Ellen Hart -s suspenseful -Blind Sided, - a man who -s losing his sight comments -You can -t go blind in Minnesota without being offered a lot of help -it -s the way Minnesotans are. - That may explain why these 15 original stories -some dealing with organized crime and less-than-peaceful death -are overall less dark than in the other anthologies reviewed here.

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.