Prague Noir

December 1, 2017
Murder and mayhem erupt, even in fairy-tale Prague.Editor Mandys maintains that it may be hard to imagine dark doings taking place virtually in the shadow of Prague Castle, yet he manages to harvest 14 artful tales that speak directly to the contrary. Although there are few standard whodunits, Prague's long history provides fertile ground for evildoers. In some, like Ond?ej Neff's "Marl Circle," the seeds of menace are sown soon after the city's founding 2,000 years ago. Others explore more recent sources of evil, from the Holocaust, which claims the hero's father in Chaim Cigan's "The Magical Amulet," to the Soviet occupation, the chief source of the misery in "The Life and Work of Baroness Mautnic," by Kate?ina Tu?kova. Some, like Milos Urban's "Disappearances on the Bridge" and Stepan Kop?iva's "Amateurs," are almost shockingly modern. Others, like Petra Soukupova's "Another Worst Day" and Martin Goffa's "Three Musketeers," explore sorrow so universal they could be set at any time and any place. And some seem particularly Czech, like Ji?i W. Prochazka's "The Dead Girl from a Haunted House," which takes place during carnival season, and Petr Stan?ik's "The Cabinet of Seven Pierced Books," a tale of the Golem.Perhaps nowhere but Prague do vice and enchantment live at such close quarters, and Mandys' collection captures both beautifully. A lovely addition to Akashic's venerable series.

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December 11, 2017
The 14 crime stories set in Prague in this superior entry in Akashic’s noir series offer armored car robbery, kidnapping, murder masked as suicide, and more—not bad for a burg that, as the editor notes in his intro, didn’t even have “the profession of private detective” until 1990. For long years under the control of a police state, the ancient city earlier witnessed Nazi occupation, and before that the legend of the golem haunting the ghetto. Chaim Cigan—billed as “currently the chief rabbi of the Czech Republic”—draws authoritatively on the city’s mystic background in “The Magical Amulet”; Michal Sýkora’s “Percy Thrillington” presents a by-the-book puzzle-style mystery with clues from the music catalogue of Paul McCartney. Petr Stancík spins a lively and unusual tale in “The Cabinet of Seven Pierced Books,” in which figures such as the “autarchic detective, one Egon Alter” can drop casually into the action—delightfully reminiscent of Avram Davidson’s fantastical adventures of Dr. Eszterhazy. In the varied and polished content of this volume, readers will find much to amuse.