Detroit Noir

By E.J. Olsen

Book Overview

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.

Brand-new stories by: Joyce Carol Oates, Loren D. Estleman, P.J. Parrish, Nisi Shawl, Craig Holden, Craig Bernier, Desiree Cooper, Melissa Preddy, E.J. Olsen, Joe Boland, Megan Abbott, Dorene O'Brien, Lolita Hernandez, Peter Markus, Roger K. Johnson, and Michael Zadoorian.

From the introduction by E.J. Olsen & John C. Hocking:

"Detroit is an old and wounded city, broken into wildly diverse splinters, but it is not dead, for it is possessed of a unique vitality rooted in its complex history and in its hardy people. Detroit is noir, shadowed and striving, grim and powerful. It is impossible to truly know the city and not respect it . . .

In Detroit Noir you will find noir in many forms, embodied by many characters. From a driven detective with a mystery to solve to a working man just trying to make it through another day, from a bemused outsider seeking a thrill to one so deeply inside the city as to see no outside at all. Urban professionals, night watchmen, tarot card readers, waitresses, caretakers, and criminals, all bound together by the city and by a dark dilemma that looms just ahead. A moment awaits each of them, a moment of truth or violence or epiphany or change. A noir moment."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933354399
• ISBN13: 9781933354392
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Good collection

Detroit is definitely a city that lends itself to dark tales. I liked this collection and thought it captured the mood of the city very well. It was nice to see some of the literary talent coming out of the Motor City together in one volume. It will be a quick but absorbing read.

Not Just Another Pretty Place

Detroit Noir lives up to the promise of the earlier books in the series. Leading off with stories by P.J. Parrish, Loren Estleman, and Joyce Carol Oates, this volume starts at a high level and, although I knew few of the following writers, the stories and writing skill don't sag at all. Each writer shows the darker side of a particular Detroit landmark or district, sometimes with humor, but usually with the kind of bleakness that befits a book with "Noir" in the title. Some of the stories aren't technically crime or mystery, but they convey such a powerful sense of Urban Blight (Motor City Malaise?) that they fit in with those of the better known writers. I plan to start combing bookshelves for other work by the people I've discovered thanks to this collection.