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Seattle Noir
Brand new stories by: G.M. Ford, Skye Moody, R. Barri Flowers, Thomas P. Hopp, Patricia Harrington, Bharti Kirchner, Kathleen Alcalá, Simon Wood, Brian Thornton, Lou Kemp, Curt Colbert, Robert Lopresti, Paul S. Piper, and Stephan Magcosta.
Early Seattle was a hardscrabble seaport filled with merchant sailors, longshoremen, lumberjacks, rowdy saloons, and a rough-and-tumble police force not immune to corruption and graft. By the mid-50s, the town had added Boeing to its claim to fame, but was still a mostly blue-collar burg that was infamously described as “a cultural dustbin” by the Seattle Symphony’s first conductor. Present-day Seattle has become a pricey, cosmopolitan center, home to Microsoft and Starbucks. The city is famous as the birthplace of grunge music, and possesses a flourishing art, theatre, and club scene that many would have thought improbable just a few decades ago. But some things never change—crime being one of them. Seattle’s evolution to high-finance and high-tech has simply provided even greater opportunity and reward to those who might be ethically, morally, or economically challenged (crooks, in other words). But most crooks are just ordinary people, not professional thieves or crime bosses—they might be your pleasant neighbor, your wife or lover, your grocer or hairdresser, your minister or banker or lifelong friend—yet even the most upright and honest of them sometimes fall to temptation.
Within the stories of Seattle Noir, you will find: a wealthy couple whose marriage is filled with not-so-quiet desperation; a credit card scam that goes over-limit; femmes fatales and hommes fatales; a delicatessen owner whose case is less than kosher; a famous midget actor whose movie roles begin to shrink when he starts growing taller; an ex-cop who learns too much; a group of mystery writers whose fiction causes friction; a Native American shaman caught in a web of secrets and tribal allegiances; sex, lies, and slippery slopes . . . and a cast of characters that always want more, not less . . . unless . . .
Blood tide / Thomas P. Hopp --
Promised tulips / Bharti Kirchner --
Golden gardens / Stephan Magcosta --
The center of the universe / Robert Lopresti --
Blue Sunday / Kathleen Alcalâa --
The taskmasters / Simon Wood --
What price retribution? / Patricia Harrington --
Till death do us -- / Curt Colbert --
The best view in town / Paul S. Piper --
The wrong end of a gun / R. Barri Flowers --
Paper son / Brian Thornton --
The magnolia bluff / Skye Moody --
Sherlock's opera / Lou Kemp --
Food for thought / G.M. Ford
Early Seattle was a hardscrabble seaport filled with merchant sailors, longshoremen, lumberjacks, rowdy saloons, and a rough-and-tumble police force not immune to corruption and graft. By the mid-50s, the town had added Boeing to its claim to fame, but was still a mostly blue-collar burg that was infamously described as “a cultural dustbin” by the Seattle Symphony’s first conductor. Present-day Seattle has become a pricey, cosmopolitan center, home to Microsoft and Starbucks. The city is famous as the birthplace of grunge music, and possesses a flourishing art, theatre, and club scene that many would have thought improbable just a few decades ago. But some things never change—crime being one of them. Seattle’s evolution to high-finance and high-tech has simply provided even greater opportunity and reward to those who might be ethically, morally, or economically challenged (crooks, in other words). But most crooks are just ordinary people, not professional thieves or crime bosses—they might be your pleasant neighbor, your wife or lover, your grocer or hairdresser, your minister or banker or lifelong friend—yet even the most upright and honest of them sometimes fall to temptation.
Within the stories of Seattle Noir, you will find: a wealthy couple whose marriage is filled with not-so-quiet desperation; a credit card scam that goes over-limit; femmes fatales and hommes fatales; a delicatessen owner whose case is less than kosher; a famous midget actor whose movie roles begin to shrink when he starts growing taller; an ex-cop who learns too much; a group of mystery writers whose fiction causes friction; a Native American shaman caught in a web of secrets and tribal allegiances; sex, lies, and slippery slopes . . . and a cast of characters that always want more, not less . . . unless . . .
Blood tide / Thomas P. Hopp --
Promised tulips / Bharti Kirchner --
Golden gardens / Stephan Magcosta --
The center of the universe / Robert Lopresti --
Blue Sunday / Kathleen Alcalâa --
The taskmasters / Simon Wood --
What price retribution? / Patricia Harrington --
Till death do us -- / Curt Colbert --
The best view in town / Paul S. Piper --
The wrong end of a gun / R. Barri Flowers --
Paper son / Brian Thornton --
The magnolia bluff / Skye Moody --
Sherlock's opera / Lou Kemp --
Food for thought / G.M. Ford
300 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
40 people are currently reading
348 people want to read
About the author
Curt Colbert
8 books13 followersAuthor of the Jake Rossiter and Miss Jenkins Mystery series set in 1940s Seattle.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
July 11, 2015
Saw this little gem of a book at Metsker Maps in the SEA-TAC airport. I am participating in Turner Classic Movie's Summer of Darkness film noir study (Summer 2014) and had to have the book when I saw it. This book of short stories by Seattle writers brings Seattle old and new alive as a place of shadowy nooks and crannies exuding questionable morals - and, really, isn't that just Seattle? The various protagonists may not always have a happy ending, but that's the point of noir. One story even brings Sherlock Holmes and Moriarity (sort of) to Seattle. I think I will take the book with me on my next trip up and visit the settings of the stories.
If your interested, this volume is one of a series. Also available are Baltimore, Bronx, Brooklyn, Chicago, D.C., Dehli, Detroit, Dublin, Havana, Istanbul (can anyone say, "Maltese Falcon"?), Las Vegas, Manhattan, Miami, New Orleans, Paris, Portland, Queens, Rome, San Francisco, Toronto, Trinidad, Twin Cities, and Wall Street collections noir.
P.S. Metsker's, if I can plug, is a wonderful Seattle map store of which I am very fond. They have all sorts of cool maps and map-like treats. They are a Seattle original located near Pike's Market and worth your patronage.
If your interested, this volume is one of a series. Also available are Baltimore, Bronx, Brooklyn, Chicago, D.C., Dehli, Detroit, Dublin, Havana, Istanbul (can anyone say, "Maltese Falcon"?), Las Vegas, Manhattan, Miami, New Orleans, Paris, Portland, Queens, Rome, San Francisco, Toronto, Trinidad, Twin Cities, and Wall Street collections noir.
P.S. Metsker's, if I can plug, is a wonderful Seattle map store of which I am very fond. They have all sorts of cool maps and map-like treats. They are a Seattle original located near Pike's Market and worth your patronage.
June 15, 2009
As with any short story collection, some are better than others in this collection that takes readers on a tour of the seamy underbelly of several of Seattle's neighborhoods. The writing in a few seems forced, but there are a few that took some wonderful surprise twists and one that made me laugh out loud at the end. My favorites were the stories by Simon Wood and Curt Colbert--if all the stories were on that level I would have given the book an extra star. A good, quick, fun read overall.
August 25, 2021
If you enjoy a great anthology, this is one to look for. There are "Noir" anthologies for nearly all big cities, sometimes more than one. For instance, Baltimore---home to Poe and the beginnings of noir-- there are two anthologies. London Noir is out there, New York Noir, and many more. I'm reading Prague Noir soon.
I attended the book signing for this book years ago, and met all of the authors. Their enthusiasm for the genre was on display as they compared notes and the odd facts, myths, and rumors that did not make it into the book. Curt Colbert, who edited, did a stellar job on editing the book and his own story within it. There are several standouts in the stories, and so as to not influence your opinion, I'll only mention that the flavor of the city, both in the past and near present, is represented in the engaging stories.
I attended the book signing for this book years ago, and met all of the authors. Their enthusiasm for the genre was on display as they compared notes and the odd facts, myths, and rumors that did not make it into the book. Curt Colbert, who edited, did a stellar job on editing the book and his own story within it. There are several standouts in the stories, and so as to not influence your opinion, I'll only mention that the flavor of the city, both in the past and near present, is represented in the engaging stories.
January 8, 2018
pretty solid short story collection.
December 23, 2022
Liked the stories, the locations and places that the stories are taking place in the Emerald city.
June 12, 2015
I have probably spent more time in Seattle than any other city outside the Twin Cities, and I definitely regard it fondly and look forward to any chance to visit. While the Pacific Northwest shares some cultural traits with my home in the Upper Midwest, the coast and the mountains give it an entirely different feel. There is a grittiness along the steep, mist drenched streets of Seattle that can not be found in Minneapolis-St. Paul, though perhaps may be found a bit in Duluth. In any case, there is much material to draw upon along the shores of Puget Sound for noir tales, and I was looking forward to reading about the human drama found under the shadow of the gleaming white Space Needle and the distant snowy form of Mount Rainier.
Unfortunately, I found that this title in the Akashic Noir series had the weakest evocation of the setting of any of the series I’ve read so far. There was something lacking in a lot of the stories in this collection, sadly. The city of Seattle seems merely incidental in a majority of these tales, and for the most part, they seem to stick to tired, well worn noir cliches, with few surprises. Corrupt cops, homeless PIs, mysterious murders- nothing that really sticks out; even the 1940s and 1880s period pieces lacked much of a sense of place. There was also a rather unfortunate element of racism in a few of the stories as well, especially What Price Retribution? There were a few stories that stood out, though, in particular Paper Son (an interesting multicultural story set in the 1880s), Center of the Universe (a story highlighting Seattle’s quirky people), Wrong End of the Gun (which, while not drawing much from the setting had an interesting twist), and The Magnolia Bluff (which had some of the best characterization in the collection). The rest of the stories were, at best, okay. I’d recommend Portland Noir as the superior Akashic Noir title focusing on the Pacific Northwest.
Unfortunately, I found that this title in the Akashic Noir series had the weakest evocation of the setting of any of the series I’ve read so far. There was something lacking in a lot of the stories in this collection, sadly. The city of Seattle seems merely incidental in a majority of these tales, and for the most part, they seem to stick to tired, well worn noir cliches, with few surprises. Corrupt cops, homeless PIs, mysterious murders- nothing that really sticks out; even the 1940s and 1880s period pieces lacked much of a sense of place. There was also a rather unfortunate element of racism in a few of the stories as well, especially What Price Retribution? There were a few stories that stood out, though, in particular Paper Son (an interesting multicultural story set in the 1880s), Center of the Universe (a story highlighting Seattle’s quirky people), Wrong End of the Gun (which, while not drawing much from the setting had an interesting twist), and The Magnolia Bluff (which had some of the best characterization in the collection). The rest of the stories were, at best, okay. I’d recommend Portland Noir as the superior Akashic Noir title focusing on the Pacific Northwest.
September 21, 2017
Several decent stories but most would likely not be published elsewhere.
June 6, 2018
3-1/2 ⭐️
March 20, 2021
Many of these stories seemed dated- as if they could have been written 50 years ago. Some were actually set in the past. I didn’t get much of a sense of modern Seattle.
September 26, 2021
Some stories were pretty fun or had a nice twist but others were off the mark for me personally. I really like Curt Colbert's introduction and the first series of stories best in this collection.
October 11, 2022
Collection of short stories loosely in the noir genre all based in Seattle. Some good some bad.
July 31, 2017
No doubt, as many others have observed, it would be fairer to rate each writer individually here, because this is a very mixed bag. I enjoyed the anchor pieces that began and ended the collection, and it was the presence of a relatively brief piece by GM Ford that made me go looking for it. I liked the story set in Chinatown, as well as the lampoon of the very-elite Magnolia by new-to-me writer Skye Moody. I understand that the writer with the Nordstrom-this and Nordstrom-that is an award winner, but I would not give an award for this particular story, which became so pretentious and tedious that I skipped to its ending once I was halfway through and saw how much was left to go.
I had to laugh when I noted that though quality had been compromised to represent most parts of the city, all of Rainier Valley (the 25% or so south of Chinatown and the Central District, long considered the wrong side of the tracks) went entirely unacknowledged.
I emerged relatively cheerful though, because I read it free. A family member had it on a kindle and let me have a couple evenings alone with it, and so I felt good about it. Had I paid for a hard cover copy, I think I would have felt robbed.
Get it cheap or free if your heart, like mine, is in Seattle. That way you can read what seems good and skip the rest.
I had to laugh when I noted that though quality had been compromised to represent most parts of the city, all of Rainier Valley (the 25% or so south of Chinatown and the Central District, long considered the wrong side of the tracks) went entirely unacknowledged.
I emerged relatively cheerful though, because I read it free. A family member had it on a kindle and let me have a couple evenings alone with it, and so I felt good about it. Had I paid for a hard cover copy, I think I would have felt robbed.
Get it cheap or free if your heart, like mine, is in Seattle. That way you can read what seems good and skip the rest.
November 13, 2011
A collection I wish would've been better. A handful of good stories -- Bharti Kirchner's "Promised Tulips", "The Best View in Town" by Paul S. Piper and Robert Lopresti's "The Center of the Universe" -- get practically buried in among a lot of mediocre stories that veer between sacrificing Seattle in the name of noir or vice versa.
You have to hang on til the bitter end to catch the anthology's two really outstanding stories, "The Magnolia Bluff" by Skye Moody and GM Ford's "Food for Thought", both of which are quick, clean and wonderfully terrible.
While it helps with most of the stories to have some familiarity with Seattle, those last two do a grand job of telling the city's story on their own merits.
You have to hang on til the bitter end to catch the anthology's two really outstanding stories, "The Magnolia Bluff" by Skye Moody and GM Ford's "Food for Thought", both of which are quick, clean and wonderfully terrible.
While it helps with most of the stories to have some familiarity with Seattle, those last two do a grand job of telling the city's story on their own merits.
August 22, 2011
The rain doesn't even factor in these stories-merely a minor mention. So much for the omnipresent rain of Seattle. However, there are some good stories in this volume that are the typical noir types you would find in any city: married couple hiring a PI to protect each of them from the other partner who is going to kill them; dirty cops setting up a punk; affair for murder of the husband and then the set-up. Some news ones though with a red tide poison from the Puget Sound Native Americans and the triads of China murder in Chinatown. A nice mix of interesting stories set in Seattle, past and present.
March 5, 2010
This book is a series of stories set in Seattle that are at least moderately dark and by local-ish authors I'd never heard of. The stories weren't really cohesive. They were divided into 4 parts, but I didn't really understand what the stories in a part had to do with one another either.
If you're really into stories set in Seattle, or northwest authors, this book might be worth a read (check it out from the library, it's not worth buying).
If you're really into stories set in Seattle, or northwest authors, this book might be worth a read (check it out from the library, it's not worth buying).
August 14, 2011
After just returning from a road trip to Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula, I found this book quite entertaining. The locations and references to native populations of the area were fresh in my mind, making it easier to picture the situations in these short stories. I'm continuing the Noir series, albeit intermittently and it's interesting to see the difference in the caliber of writing between the authors.
October 16, 2011
Mystery short stories are hard.
There's not enough room to really develop characters or do an interesting plot, so they mostly end up being a 10 page setup for a twist ending that becomes pretty easy to guess after the second page.
There might be good mystery short stories out there, but these ain't them.
They do take place in Seattle, and I love reading stuff that takes place in Seattle, so it gets the second star from me. Not recommended.
There's not enough room to really develop characters or do an interesting plot, so they mostly end up being a 10 page setup for a twist ending that becomes pretty easy to guess after the second page.
There might be good mystery short stories out there, but these ain't them.
They do take place in Seattle, and I love reading stuff that takes place in Seattle, so it gets the second star from me. Not recommended.
April 1, 2016
It's difficult to rate a collection of short stories by different authors. My favorites in this collection of dark, mystery-ish tales set in Seattle were "The Magnolia Bluff" by Skye Moody, "The Wrong End of a Gun" by R. Barri Flowers, and "The Best View in Town" by Paul S. Piper. IMO, there were a few clunkers in this collection, but enough good, creepy fun to please any lover of this genre. Worth a look.
November 19, 2021
Part of a great series, focused on an international and interesting list of locations: Boston, Seattle, Istanbul...the list goes on, and the stories strangely stay relatively timeless.
Each volume is edited by a local author, who then -- if I understand correctly -- selects other writers to create stories about particular neighborhoods.
Fair to say the writing can be uneven, but always entertaining and usually quirkily NOIR.
Each volume is edited by a local author, who then -- if I understand correctly -- selects other writers to create stories about particular neighborhoods.
Fair to say the writing can be uneven, but always entertaining and usually quirkily NOIR.
September 9, 2013
Just two stars. There were two good stories in this collection. The rest of them were either boring noir stories with only a token nod to Seattle, or with horrible writing mechanics, or just bad story-telling. The two good stories were tightly written, actually used Seattle appropriately, and had good plotting.
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January 18, 2017It's a mixed bag. 3 1/2 stars over-all, with individual stories ranging from 2 to 4 stars.
Favorites:
"The Center of the Universe" (Robert Lopresti)
"The Taskmasters" (Simon Wood)
"What Price Retribution?" (Patricia Harrington)
"Paper Son" (Brian Thornton)
Two of the weaker stories were overly political. A couple others were set up well but finished weakly.
Favorites:
"The Center of the Universe" (Robert Lopresti)
"The Taskmasters" (Simon Wood)
"What Price Retribution?" (Patricia Harrington)
"Paper Son" (Brian Thornton)
Two of the weaker stories were overly political. A couple others were set up well but finished weakly.
January 15, 2010
I would say I enjoyed 3/4 of the stories. Some were great and others were so lame a junior high school could have written a better tale. But enjoyable overall. Made me look over my shoulder for sure.
August 30, 2011
Nice mix of noirs. Some classic '40s lingo, some modern as hell, some funny, some creepy, some great, some ok. And I learned a thing or two about Cap. Vancouver's botany skills from the delightfully punned "Magnolia Bluff".
December 4, 2011
Overall more good stories then bad, thought the first story did kind of hit an off key note for me. All the others range from fine to great. With this and others in the line of these noir anthologies, it helps if the reader brings a little familiarity of the geography with them.
January 7, 2010
I picked this up because of the title and then the introduction was compelling. Sadly the quality of the stories was pretty inconsistent. Oh well.
February 6, 2010
We met the editor and a few of the writers for this collection of short stories about Seattle. They seem like an interesting group, but this collection of short stories was just okay.
July 28, 2010
Fun short stories
September 20, 2010
I used to live there...it jumped out at the library, plus I love suspense/mystery books. Which it was...not so much so for "Paris Noir" which I'm currently reading.
April 30, 2014
I enjoyed the diversity of time and style of the stories. Everything from classic 50s style detective stories to old west to modern thriller. Worth a read especially of you live in Seattle.
March 23, 2015
Uneven collection. Some of the stories were great, some were not well written or worth telling.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews