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Manhattan Noir #1
Manhattan Noir
From the introduction by Lawrence Block:
Readers of Brooklyn Noir will recall that its contents were labeled by neighborhood - Bay Ridge, Canarsie, Greenpoint, etc. We have chosen the same principle here, and the book's contents do a good job of covering the island, from C.J. Sullivan's Inwood and John Lutz's Upper West Side, to Justin Scott's Chelsea and Carol Lea Benjamin's Greenwich Village. The range in mood and literary style is at least as great; noir can be funny, it can stretch to include magic realism, it can be ample or stark, told in the past or present tense, and in the first or third person. I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it -- but it seems to be that it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees.
The good Samaritan / Charles Ardai --
The last supper / Carol Lea Benjamin --
If you can't stand the heat / Lawrence Block --
Rain / Thomas H. Cook --
A nice place to visit / Jeffrey Deaver --
The next best thing / Jim Fusilli --
Take the man's pay / Robert Knightly --
The laundry room / John Lutz --
Freddie Prinze is my guardian angel / Liz Martínez --
The organ grinder / Maan Meyers --
Why do they have to hit? / Martin Meyers --
Building / S.J. Rozan --
The most beautiful apartment in New York / Justin Scott --
The last round / C.J. Sullivan --
Crying with Audrey Hepburn / Xu Xi
Readers of Brooklyn Noir will recall that its contents were labeled by neighborhood - Bay Ridge, Canarsie, Greenpoint, etc. We have chosen the same principle here, and the book's contents do a good job of covering the island, from C.J. Sullivan's Inwood and John Lutz's Upper West Side, to Justin Scott's Chelsea and Carol Lea Benjamin's Greenwich Village. The range in mood and literary style is at least as great; noir can be funny, it can stretch to include magic realism, it can be ample or stark, told in the past or present tense, and in the first or third person. I wouldn't presume to define noir - if we could define it, we wouldn't need to use a French word for it -- but it seems to be that it's more a way of looking at the world than what one sees.
The good Samaritan / Charles Ardai --
The last supper / Carol Lea Benjamin --
If you can't stand the heat / Lawrence Block --
Rain / Thomas H. Cook --
A nice place to visit / Jeffrey Deaver --
The next best thing / Jim Fusilli --
Take the man's pay / Robert Knightly --
The laundry room / John Lutz --
Freddie Prinze is my guardian angel / Liz Martínez --
The organ grinder / Maan Meyers --
Why do they have to hit? / Martin Meyers --
Building / S.J. Rozan --
The most beautiful apartment in New York / Justin Scott --
The last round / C.J. Sullivan --
Crying with Audrey Hepburn / Xu Xi
257 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2006
222 people are currently reading
537 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Block
768 books2,992 followersLawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published in excess (oh, wretched excess!) of 100 books, and no end of short stories.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
June 14, 2021
I'm really enjoying the Akashic Noir series and I will read more of them. Again not a dud in the bunch. I particularly liked "Freddie Prinze Is My Guardian Angel." It was a nice touch of humor smack dab in the middle of the book. After I finish New York City and all of it's boroughs I'm sure I will move on to other cities and I have to say...It's been a long time since any series of short stories has caught my attention like this series has.
July 20, 2012
And so, after a gap, another edition of Akashic's ongoing city-themed noir anthologies read and digested (and yes, they are now putting these out at such a rate relative to how fast I'm reading them and how far behind I am that it's now more than certain that I will never catch up - unless they start experiencing diminishing returns on DUBUQUE NOIR...)
My comments from Brooklyn Noir, Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics, Chicago Noir, San Francisco Noir, D.C. Noir and Dublin Noir: The Celtic Tiger vs. The Ugly American all still apply - crime stories (not all of them "noir" in the strictest definition, plus lots of character studies) set in city X, about about a third of the selection weak, a third solid to good, and a few excellent pieces average out to a 3 rating (although Lawrence Block has to be respected for not including some of the downright amateurish stuff as could be found on display in DC NOIR).
Another interesting aspect - as I've mentioned before, the argument could be made that a yardstick for success in any of these stories would revolve around how well it evoked the particular city that was the overall theme of the collection (and thus, by inversion, stories that could actually have taken place in just about any generic city might be seen as lacking something, or missing the point). And yet, as Block points out in the intro - Manhattan truly is, in modern life, "The City", the platonic ideal/UR text by which all other cities are measured (sorry, London, but hey you had a few hundred years in the slot and did yourself proud!). So, you could argue that the critical approach mooted above doesn't really apply. And yet...
Me and Manhattan - I grew up on the Jersey Shore and so NYC was within a 90 minute drive north. As a child, with a grandmother living in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and a school system ambitious enough take schoolkids on a daring "field trip" occasionally (the King Tut exhibit in 1979, the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters a year or so later) - yeah, I saw the city. And as a teenager of driving age, yes, it was a mecca of record stores and sights and sounds far removed from culturally inert Jersey suburbia - if we had enough money to afford the trek in (gas, tolls, parking, food, and buying stuff - a little over $100 was the minimum in the 80's for headstrong teens). But, while I'm still back at least once a year, I have to say that I'm slightly cool to the Big Apple - partly because it's such an intense, pressure cooker experience, better for younger people, but also because it has slowly re-tooled itself into being a city for mostly the very, very rich and the few poor people they need on hand at all times. But enough of that malarkey, you want to know about the stories...
Worsties Firsties? Well, as I said, nothing here is that bad, but... Weaksies Firsties, then...
John Lutz's "The Laundry Room" - in which a Manhattan couple suspects their charismatic son may be up to no good (and they're right) - is well written and gestures towards an examination of family dynamics, but the intimations of something below the surface never really get exposed enough to make it work. "Why Do They Have To Hit?" by Martin Meyers does a good job with a specific milieu (NYC's fickle and transient acting population) and some nice choppy prose and dialogue, but the "story" of a male/female friendship and am abusive lover is just kind of ... there.
As for the solid but uneven...
Someone is poisoning the homeless (in a unique manner, and for a somewhat unique purpose) in "The Good Samaritan" by Charles Ardai. It's a pretty direct little mystery story starring that genre staple, the "hard as nails" police detective, but kudos to the solid writing and telling it as a compact short fiction piece instead of a windy, bloated novel. Poisoning also features in Carol Lee Benjamin's "The Last Supper", as the soon-to-be ex-wife of a wealthy philanderer gets her revenge. Another punchy little slice of life/crime story ala ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Cute, but not amazing or anything. And poisoning is the linchpin of editor Lawrence Block' s own "If You Can't Stand The Heat" - in which we get a nice "character sketch" of Hell's Kitchen underlying the tale of a Kitchen native picking up a naive young mid-westerner, just into the big bad city, in a local watering hole. But who's scamming who? Again, like the previous two, solid but forgettable ELLERY QUEEN filler (which is too glib - it's harder to write that stuff then it seems!)
In what seems like a strange protracted joke at the expense of the titular character, Liz Martínez tells about a young Puerto Rican girl who comes to understand that "Freddie Prinze Is My Guardian Angel" - and how little that means in the long run. I really enjoyed reading this story but I'll also say I have no idea, in the end, what the point of it was (unless, as I said, Ms. Martínez just doesn't much like the now deceased star of CHICO AND THE MAN). Xu Xi's "Crying With Audrey Hepburn" is a character sketch of a Eurasian dancer with high hopes but less talent, her eventual marriage to a more talented hoofer, and her eventual decline as a sex-dancer with a gimmick. Okay as a character sketch but... The writing duo pseudonymed as Maan Meyers deliver a powerfully sketched setting of old (turn of the century? 1880's? 1910's?) Manhattan - which is actually they're specific specialty - in "The Organ Grinder" - reminding us what a smelly, filthy, disgusting pest-hole of ethnic and racial turmoil the city once was (once... heh...), but while the milieu of wharf rats, East-Side boys, Italian street vendors and Irish cops (and a little Black Hand action thrown in to boot) is extremely well-done, this piece also felt strongly like a section of a larger work. Still, I bet that larger work, or other novels by the author duo, are quite good. One of two period pieces in the book, BTW.
And the first of the totally solid stories is the other period piece, "The Next Best Thing" by Jim Fusilli - in which a bad apple, semi-talented jazz pianist and all-around jerk plans a bank heist while his shrinking violet girlfriend and her secret lesbian lover plan a double cross. Well-written in a terse, choppy style - and I dig stories set in the jazz world - this also features that rarest of rare noir moments - the twist happy ending! A Japanese immigrant spends a long evening being bounced around a police precinct house while subjected to threats and racial epithets, all because a hooker threw herself from his hotel window, in "Take The Man's Pay" by Robert Knightly - a bleak little story about cultural differences and the cynicism of cops (nicely summed up in the title, when the full quote is given at the end) that rings as a possibly true story (the author once worked as a policeman). Much more crooked and bent cops can be found in Jeffery Deaver's "A Nice Place To Visit" in which said officers of the law, along with assorted con-men and grifters, play their remunerative games with the innocent, cheap and semi-criminal. Well-sketched characters work a narrative of scams on top of cons on top of corruption, all covered in a big dollop of revenge and quite the enjoyable read (if, perhaps a bit clunky in the who-was-doing-what-to-whom exposition at the climax).
An over-the-hill boxer gets a second chance and a final (unexpected) fight to prove he was a noble guy all the while in C.J. Sullivan's sad and moving "The Last Round". Good, good stuff. On the other end of the spectrum (in cynicism, not quality) is the darkly comic and bloodthirsty "The Most Beautiful Apartment in New York", in which the cutthroat Manhattan real-estate market is exposed in all it's awful glory. Justin Scott turns in a nasty little piece of work here (and I didn't even mind the slight supernatural tint at the end).
Along the humanistic lines of Sullivan's boxer piece is "Building" in which a one-time loser, out on parole, inadvertently (and innocently) finds himself drawn back into bad circumstances. It's another tale of tarnished nobility and S.J. Rozan does an excellent job with it - it almost read like on of Rod Serling's morality plays to me, and believe me, that's high praise indeed.
The best for last - "Rain" by Thomas H. Cook - simply amazing. Instead of a crime, instead of a character study, instead of a corner of the city, Cook gives you *all* crime, *all* characters, *all* corners of the city in a kaleidoscopic, Cubist cross-section of a stormy Manhattan in which all manners of crime (big, medium, small-time, violent, mental, emotional, financial) are occurring to all orders of people (upper-crusts, low-lifes and the middle class, young and old) all of whom move through varied trajectories that meet, graze, glance off or pass each other entirely unnoticed. And a baby dies... extremely well done!
And that's it. Next up, Baltimore Noir.
My comments from Brooklyn Noir, Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics, Chicago Noir, San Francisco Noir, D.C. Noir and Dublin Noir: The Celtic Tiger vs. The Ugly American all still apply - crime stories (not all of them "noir" in the strictest definition, plus lots of character studies) set in city X, about about a third of the selection weak, a third solid to good, and a few excellent pieces average out to a 3 rating (although Lawrence Block has to be respected for not including some of the downright amateurish stuff as could be found on display in DC NOIR).
Another interesting aspect - as I've mentioned before, the argument could be made that a yardstick for success in any of these stories would revolve around how well it evoked the particular city that was the overall theme of the collection (and thus, by inversion, stories that could actually have taken place in just about any generic city might be seen as lacking something, or missing the point). And yet, as Block points out in the intro - Manhattan truly is, in modern life, "The City", the platonic ideal/UR text by which all other cities are measured (sorry, London, but hey you had a few hundred years in the slot and did yourself proud!). So, you could argue that the critical approach mooted above doesn't really apply. And yet...
Me and Manhattan - I grew up on the Jersey Shore and so NYC was within a 90 minute drive north. As a child, with a grandmother living in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, and a school system ambitious enough take schoolkids on a daring "field trip" occasionally (the King Tut exhibit in 1979, the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters a year or so later) - yeah, I saw the city. And as a teenager of driving age, yes, it was a mecca of record stores and sights and sounds far removed from culturally inert Jersey suburbia - if we had enough money to afford the trek in (gas, tolls, parking, food, and buying stuff - a little over $100 was the minimum in the 80's for headstrong teens). But, while I'm still back at least once a year, I have to say that I'm slightly cool to the Big Apple - partly because it's such an intense, pressure cooker experience, better for younger people, but also because it has slowly re-tooled itself into being a city for mostly the very, very rich and the few poor people they need on hand at all times. But enough of that malarkey, you want to know about the stories...
Worsties Firsties? Well, as I said, nothing here is that bad, but... Weaksies Firsties, then...
John Lutz's "The Laundry Room" - in which a Manhattan couple suspects their charismatic son may be up to no good (and they're right) - is well written and gestures towards an examination of family dynamics, but the intimations of something below the surface never really get exposed enough to make it work. "Why Do They Have To Hit?" by Martin Meyers does a good job with a specific milieu (NYC's fickle and transient acting population) and some nice choppy prose and dialogue, but the "story" of a male/female friendship and am abusive lover is just kind of ... there.
As for the solid but uneven...
Someone is poisoning the homeless (in a unique manner, and for a somewhat unique purpose) in "The Good Samaritan" by Charles Ardai. It's a pretty direct little mystery story starring that genre staple, the "hard as nails" police detective, but kudos to the solid writing and telling it as a compact short fiction piece instead of a windy, bloated novel. Poisoning also features in Carol Lee Benjamin's "The Last Supper", as the soon-to-be ex-wife of a wealthy philanderer gets her revenge. Another punchy little slice of life/crime story ala ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Cute, but not amazing or anything. And poisoning is the linchpin of editor Lawrence Block' s own "If You Can't Stand The Heat" - in which we get a nice "character sketch" of Hell's Kitchen underlying the tale of a Kitchen native picking up a naive young mid-westerner, just into the big bad city, in a local watering hole. But who's scamming who? Again, like the previous two, solid but forgettable ELLERY QUEEN filler (which is too glib - it's harder to write that stuff then it seems!)
In what seems like a strange protracted joke at the expense of the titular character, Liz Martínez tells about a young Puerto Rican girl who comes to understand that "Freddie Prinze Is My Guardian Angel" - and how little that means in the long run. I really enjoyed reading this story but I'll also say I have no idea, in the end, what the point of it was (unless, as I said, Ms. Martínez just doesn't much like the now deceased star of CHICO AND THE MAN). Xu Xi's "Crying With Audrey Hepburn" is a character sketch of a Eurasian dancer with high hopes but less talent, her eventual marriage to a more talented hoofer, and her eventual decline as a sex-dancer with a gimmick. Okay as a character sketch but... The writing duo pseudonymed as Maan Meyers deliver a powerfully sketched setting of old (turn of the century? 1880's? 1910's?) Manhattan - which is actually they're specific specialty - in "The Organ Grinder" - reminding us what a smelly, filthy, disgusting pest-hole of ethnic and racial turmoil the city once was (once... heh...), but while the milieu of wharf rats, East-Side boys, Italian street vendors and Irish cops (and a little Black Hand action thrown in to boot) is extremely well-done, this piece also felt strongly like a section of a larger work. Still, I bet that larger work, or other novels by the author duo, are quite good. One of two period pieces in the book, BTW.
And the first of the totally solid stories is the other period piece, "The Next Best Thing" by Jim Fusilli - in which a bad apple, semi-talented jazz pianist and all-around jerk plans a bank heist while his shrinking violet girlfriend and her secret lesbian lover plan a double cross. Well-written in a terse, choppy style - and I dig stories set in the jazz world - this also features that rarest of rare noir moments - the twist happy ending! A Japanese immigrant spends a long evening being bounced around a police precinct house while subjected to threats and racial epithets, all because a hooker threw herself from his hotel window, in "Take The Man's Pay" by Robert Knightly - a bleak little story about cultural differences and the cynicism of cops (nicely summed up in the title, when the full quote is given at the end) that rings as a possibly true story (the author once worked as a policeman). Much more crooked and bent cops can be found in Jeffery Deaver's "A Nice Place To Visit" in which said officers of the law, along with assorted con-men and grifters, play their remunerative games with the innocent, cheap and semi-criminal. Well-sketched characters work a narrative of scams on top of cons on top of corruption, all covered in a big dollop of revenge and quite the enjoyable read (if, perhaps a bit clunky in the who-was-doing-what-to-whom exposition at the climax).
An over-the-hill boxer gets a second chance and a final (unexpected) fight to prove he was a noble guy all the while in C.J. Sullivan's sad and moving "The Last Round". Good, good stuff. On the other end of the spectrum (in cynicism, not quality) is the darkly comic and bloodthirsty "The Most Beautiful Apartment in New York", in which the cutthroat Manhattan real-estate market is exposed in all it's awful glory. Justin Scott turns in a nasty little piece of work here (and I didn't even mind the slight supernatural tint at the end).
Along the humanistic lines of Sullivan's boxer piece is "Building" in which a one-time loser, out on parole, inadvertently (and innocently) finds himself drawn back into bad circumstances. It's another tale of tarnished nobility and S.J. Rozan does an excellent job with it - it almost read like on of Rod Serling's morality plays to me, and believe me, that's high praise indeed.
The best for last - "Rain" by Thomas H. Cook - simply amazing. Instead of a crime, instead of a character study, instead of a corner of the city, Cook gives you *all* crime, *all* characters, *all* corners of the city in a kaleidoscopic, Cubist cross-section of a stormy Manhattan in which all manners of crime (big, medium, small-time, violent, mental, emotional, financial) are occurring to all orders of people (upper-crusts, low-lifes and the middle class, young and old) all of whom move through varied trajectories that meet, graze, glance off or pass each other entirely unnoticed. And a baby dies... extremely well done!
And that's it. Next up, Baltimore Noir.
April 22, 2021
With Lawrence Block as editor, you know this collection is going to be strong. And it is, mostly. These are well written shorts, each set in a different area of Manhattan and exploring the dark side, as you might guess from the title.
July 20, 2016
Entertaining collection of dark stories set in Manhattan. Each story is well done, dark and different from each other. A quick tour from Broadway to Hell's Kitchen to the paths through Central Park all in shadow. The characters range from Irish kids on the Lower East Side to uptown real estate agents, boxers and dealers. There is no shortage of blood and double crossing as the "city that never sleeps" earns it's nickname. Good, quick, entertaining read.
December 31, 2023
Short story collections are always subject to varying degrees of quality within the multitude- although this book boasts high quality contributions from Block & Deaver, there’s a lot of forgettable material and quite a few underwhelming elements.
March 8, 2016
Lawrence Block notes in his introduction, if it was easy to define the term “noir”, then we would not need a French word for it.
Nevertheless, Manhattan Noir is a strong multi-author collection of 15 stories, all set in different Manhattan neighborhoods, and all illuminating the many diverse facets of noir fiction. They are not all crime stories, but crime is always at least lurking nearby. In fact, "Crying with Audry Hepburn" arguably has the least crime but is also the most noir in the entire book.
Charles Ardai’s “The Good Samaritan” and Carol Lea Benjamin’s “The Last Supper” are traditional nasty little tales of murder artfully planned. Thomas Cook’s “Rain” is a experimental piece of prose composed of a collage of intersecting images and characters on a single rainy night. S.J. Rozan’s “Building” is surprisingly heartfelt and inspiring. Lawrence Block contributes another story in the dark, sex-filled Kit Tolliver cycle.
Liz Martinez’s “Freddie Prinze is my Guardian Angel” stretches the genre boundaries. This funny ethnic ghost story never loses its hopeless noir essence.
“The Most Beautiful Apartment in New York” also includes a ghost of sorts, oddly enough. This may have been my favorite story, in fact, as it plays up the hot Manhattan housing market and the lengths one must go to find the perfect view.
Jeffrey Deaver contributes “A Nice Place to Visit”, a tight con man story with a dark twist.
“Take the Man’s Pay” by Robert Knightly is a very short, highly nuanced exercise in exploiting cultural weaknesses to break down a man’s psyche.
Maan Myers’ “The Organ Grinder” is noir set in New York City over a hundred years ago in a community where Irish and Italian immigrants struggle against each other. It feels incomplete. The central character, with his multiple identities and nebulous motives, almost begs for his own novel.
Every story here has something to offer. The only one I did not care for was C. J. Sullivan’s “The Last Round” which I found to be too on the nose for my taste.
Nevertheless, Manhattan Noir is a strong multi-author collection of 15 stories, all set in different Manhattan neighborhoods, and all illuminating the many diverse facets of noir fiction. They are not all crime stories, but crime is always at least lurking nearby. In fact, "Crying with Audry Hepburn" arguably has the least crime but is also the most noir in the entire book.
Charles Ardai’s “The Good Samaritan” and Carol Lea Benjamin’s “The Last Supper” are traditional nasty little tales of murder artfully planned. Thomas Cook’s “Rain” is a experimental piece of prose composed of a collage of intersecting images and characters on a single rainy night. S.J. Rozan’s “Building” is surprisingly heartfelt and inspiring. Lawrence Block contributes another story in the dark, sex-filled Kit Tolliver cycle.
Liz Martinez’s “Freddie Prinze is my Guardian Angel” stretches the genre boundaries. This funny ethnic ghost story never loses its hopeless noir essence.
“The Most Beautiful Apartment in New York” also includes a ghost of sorts, oddly enough. This may have been my favorite story, in fact, as it plays up the hot Manhattan housing market and the lengths one must go to find the perfect view.
Jeffrey Deaver contributes “A Nice Place to Visit”, a tight con man story with a dark twist.
“Take the Man’s Pay” by Robert Knightly is a very short, highly nuanced exercise in exploiting cultural weaknesses to break down a man’s psyche.
Maan Myers’ “The Organ Grinder” is noir set in New York City over a hundred years ago in a community where Irish and Italian immigrants struggle against each other. It feels incomplete. The central character, with his multiple identities and nebulous motives, almost begs for his own novel.
Every story here has something to offer. The only one I did not care for was C. J. Sullivan’s “The Last Round” which I found to be too on the nose for my taste.
February 16, 2016
This collection of short stories are all set in Manhattan. Actually, there is a long list of "Noir" anthologies that are set in cities worldwide. "Manhattan Noir" has located these dark tales in the various sections of the island, like Clinton, Upper West Side and Yorkville. Some plots are predicable (in the way 'classic' narratives are. Some, are jolting in their last paragraph...leaving you wondering how you could have missed that hint that was dropped pages ago.
In the end, if you love the noir genre and love New York City, you can't do much better than this little collection.
In the end, if you love the noir genre and love New York City, you can't do much better than this little collection.
March 24, 2018
8. Manhattan Noir edited by Lawrence Block
The Noir series is absolutely addictive. However, I realized how much more I know of Brooklyn geography than Manhattan. All of the stories are well put together, and I would like to read more by every author in this collection. Poison, stabbing, blackmailing and double crosses all show up in these stories. They also serve as a disincentive to going back. Block has picked a wide range of eras, areas, and characters to show the city I love and hate in equal measure.
March 18, 2008
This book is a series of short 'noir' (dark, mysterious) stories that take place in Manhattan. Some of them were very good suspense stories excellently written but I gave it a 3 because some spots were just un-necessarily foul.
October 4, 2011
A couple of weak stories, but, overall, a very solid collection. I have a sudden urge to fly to Manhattan, witness a murder, lie about it, and then spend some time drinking in a Lower East Side Irish bar...
December 17, 2017
Some stories are brilliant ("Last Supper"), others are such superb examples of capturing the essence of NY characters ("Nice Place to Visit"), and there are others that fall into the not-good-but-not-bad category. I miss my days in NYC, so I always relish returning there via reading.
May 27, 2020
When I read a short story anthology, I consider it a success if I like at least 70% of the stories. MANHATTAN NOIR was so good that I only disliked one in the set. There are several excellent mystery/crime stories in this book. In my estimation, “The Laundry Room” by John Lutz was outstanding.
August 24, 2008
One of the very strongest in the Noir series. All of the entries are top notch. This is a writers' read.
September 2, 2008
Seems I have no time for novels right now but these short stories really hit the spot. The true grit of Manhattan really shines through.
November 18, 2008
there were some good stories and some bad stories but overall it was rather enjoyable. i'm looking forward to reading baltimore noir and maybe i will check out a few others in the series.
June 21, 2009
Dark stories categorized by neighborhood.
Wonderful.
Wonderful.
August 3, 2009
Definitely better than Brooklyn Noir, but uneven as well.
July 5, 2013
Again, a great collection. Among my favorites were Lawrence Block (again!), Jeffrey Deaver and Maan Myers
August 23, 2011
Great stuff - bleak and funny and twisting and twisted
May 5, 2013
Couple of stories were a three star, but over all a four
October 19, 2015
good, steadfast selection of noir stories. I would have liked more neighborhood variety, many tales kept to the same areas in Manhattan. enjoyable read.
July 24, 2024
Sorry to those who actually read all my reviews because I know I repeat myself constantly. But man, I just love the Akhasic Noir series.
I already love cities, those I’ve been to, lived in, can only dream of. And there’s just nothing better than Manhattan. So it was inevitable that the series would get around to tackling the borough (there’s also a sequel). Edited by my man, Lawrence Block? Yessir.
I loved what he picked and wished only two things…
More stories! This was 257 pages. It should have been 500!
Fewer stories in Hell’s Kitchen. I love Hell’s Kitchen and love the stories set there. It’s an area that makes for tasty crime tales. But precious little on the LES/East Village? Nothing on SoHo? Chinatown?
Other than that, these were great. I think the editors of these books lead with their best but the first story its he one I’m still thinking about, even after finishing the book. Also loved the Freddy Prinze, Jr. one; that sent me. And a couple of them were heartbreakers.
Looking at the writer bios in the back and I do wish the series had been more racially diverse back then. I imagine — perhaps naively — that the more recent Akhasic Noir books are.
At any rate, I loved it and I can’t wait to read the second one.
I already love cities, those I’ve been to, lived in, can only dream of. And there’s just nothing better than Manhattan. So it was inevitable that the series would get around to tackling the borough (there’s also a sequel). Edited by my man, Lawrence Block? Yessir.
I loved what he picked and wished only two things…
More stories! This was 257 pages. It should have been 500!
Fewer stories in Hell’s Kitchen. I love Hell’s Kitchen and love the stories set there. It’s an area that makes for tasty crime tales. But precious little on the LES/East Village? Nothing on SoHo? Chinatown?
Other than that, these were great. I think the editors of these books lead with their best but the first story its he one I’m still thinking about, even after finishing the book. Also loved the Freddy Prinze, Jr. one; that sent me. And a couple of them were heartbreakers.
Looking at the writer bios in the back and I do wish the series had been more racially diverse back then. I imagine — perhaps naively — that the more recent Akhasic Noir books are.
At any rate, I loved it and I can’t wait to read the second one.
July 2, 2019
I have read many books in this series, and the quality of the books depends upon the efforts of the editor. In this case, Lawrence Block, who is one of my favorite authors, has outdone himself. The stories perfectly capture the mood and language of the Big Apple, as well as the frustrations of the cities inhabitants. Noir is always about the disenfranchise, the vulnerable sensitive person caught up in the maelstrom of society's darkest moments. Creating this mood is what noir should be, and this book creates this world perfectly.
August 7, 2021
Not quite worth the time
This Noir series doesn’t quite cut it. ThIs is the third (and last one I’ve read). There is so much potential to the idea but, with the exception of a couple stories, there’s too much gimmick, no real noir (in this book or any of the others I’ve read), a plodding certainty to the stories, and too many semi-twist endings that try to make up for the lack of plot twists, bad dames, or thoughtful shamuses. The stories are OK but they feel like they were just written to fill a quota, not because the writer wants to do something with the genre.
This Noir series doesn’t quite cut it. ThIs is the third (and last one I’ve read). There is so much potential to the idea but, with the exception of a couple stories, there’s too much gimmick, no real noir (in this book or any of the others I’ve read), a plodding certainty to the stories, and too many semi-twist endings that try to make up for the lack of plot twists, bad dames, or thoughtful shamuses. The stories are OK but they feel like they were just written to fill a quota, not because the writer wants to do something with the genre.
April 23, 2021
I couldn’t get through the book. The beginning was interesting and I thought I’d like it but it eventually got boring. It’s not really my favorite genre but I wanted to try something new and....ya. Anyways if you plan on reading it, don’t let this discourage you. HUGE TW tho...talks about rape, sexual abuse, murder etc so search up its TW before reading it and check if you have any of those triggers.
November 24, 2021
A collection of weird stories particularly the one by Ms. Xu Xi titled Crying with Audrey Hepburn.
Death appears in several of the stories but always in a matter of fact way and no cops or detectives are dispatched to crime scenes .
Two of the stories are set in the boxing world and one in the dance world.
Death appears in several of the stories but always in a matter of fact way and no cops or detectives are dispatched to crime scenes .
Two of the stories are set in the boxing world and one in the dance world.
October 7, 2022
The first few entries in this collection didn't do much for me. Things picked up considerably in the middle and died down a little in the end. Top stories:
Take the Man's Pay
The Organ Grinder
The Most Beautiful Apartment in New York
And my favorite:
The Laundry Room
Take the Man's Pay
The Organ Grinder
The Most Beautiful Apartment in New York
And my favorite:
The Laundry Room
September 20, 2020
This book completed my 2020 Reading Challenge of 90 books. On to the next one in this series, and like all the rest I tell myself it won't take me 4 years to read it.
June 5, 2021
The Bronx is up and the Battery’s Down
Like any anthology,some great, some good and some ahh. As an ex Brooklynite, I found it a most enjoyable read.
Like any anthology,some great, some good and some ahh. As an ex Brooklynite, I found it a most enjoyable read.
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