Los Angeles Noir

March 5, 2007
Akashic's city-themed noir series (New Orleans Noir
, etc.) finally reaches L.A., a prime locale for this subgenre. Of the 17 contributors, bestseller Michael Connelly is most likely to be familiar to a wide audience. Connelly's "Mulholland Drive," a nice tribute to the classic noir film Double Indemnity
, is representative of the quality writing that followers of previous volumes have come to expect. The movie industry, both latter-day and the present, offers a rich background for tight tales of trapped men and women whose passions or desperate circumstances lead them to violent ends, such as the book's stand-out, Janet Fitch's "The Method." Another highpoint is the collection's concluding story, Diana Wagman's "What You See," a depressing but compelling tale of a tragic obsession.

Starred review from May 15, 2007
The latest offering in Akashic's "Noir" series (see also the entries on Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Brooklyn) is a worthy tribute to the genre. Seventeen stories by some of the best of L.A.'s current literary generation explore the dark side of sunny Southern California. The streets of Beverly Hills, Koreatown, San Marino, West Hollywood, and Los Feliz are all settings for stories of desperation, deeply hidden secrets, and depression and fear of finding your life on the cutting-room floor, shaken by the occasional earthquake, and stirred by the roar of the nearest freeway. The Los Angeles of Raymond Chandler and Dorothy Hughes lives on through the 21st-century stories of Michael Connelly, Robert Ferrigno, Janet Fitch, Susan Straight, and Denise Hamilton, among others. Although some of the stories are more deftly crafted than others, the marvelous descriptions of the diverse settings from Rodeo Drive to Skid Row to Commerce and Belmont Shore speak volumes of the cultural and economic diversity that is the City of Angels. This third-generation Angelino loved it; highly recommended for all crime fiction collections.Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.