It’s difficult to review any anthology, do you criticize every story, or just talk about the ones you like, either way you can’t add much to the book. Anyway, with an anthology, you don’t sit down and read it cover to cover, you pick and choose and hope to stumble across bits you like, and come back to the others later.
The Akashic Noir series is quite daunting, over 100 volumes in the series, with tales from all over the world. Rio Noir is I assume a typical example. I read the first two stories, The Hanged Man by Adriana Lisboa, and Toned Cougars by Tony Bellotto (who is also the editor of the anthology) and liked them both. They are not particularly “noir” and would fit in to any collection of stories. I don’t expect to like all the others, but that doesn’t matter, I am sure there are other surpises.
It's well worth browsing the list of titles at the front of the book, pick a few places you like, and hope for the best. ( )

The first one of these Akashic Noir series I read was Stockholm Noir, which had a high percentage of hits to misses. Not so this one. Nearly all the stories have to do with drug trafficking; so maybe if you like that kind of thing, this might be worth an extra star to you. There is one dandy story here, though -- THE STORY OF GEORGES FULLAR by Raphael Montes. I actually laughed out loud long and hearty at the final line. BTW -- in case you don't know, a favela is a low-income historically informal urban area in Brazil. You likely would have figured that out from the context; but the word appears so often in these tales, I thought I'd help you out a little. ( )

I've read a couple books from Akashic's Noir series and enjoyed them all so I was excited when I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review. This collection just didn't do it for me. It could be down to translation, maybe I missed nuances that might not have translated from the original Portuguese, but the stories here seem to focus on illuminating the mysterious, shady side of humanity rather than offering up mysteries to solve. The stories felt more literary than noir, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's just not what I expected when I started this book. ( )

I love the Akashic Books Noir series. In this one there were a couple I didn't care for but two out of fourteen isn't bad with an anthology. My favorite was "The Story of Geroge Fullar." It is a neat little package with a nice twist although it didn't give me as much a "sense of place" as some of he other stories.

I waited until after the Olympics to read this and I'm glad I did. In it we see the criminal underbelly of the place and I'm left with the feeling that those USA swimmers could have had a much worse time of it. ( )

It's getting difficult to find new ways to praise the Akashic Noir series, I love these books so much. Each new volume becomes my favorite(until the next one, of course). Rio Noir is no different.

Everything you could possibly want in your noir stories is captured in these pages. Tony Bellotto and his assembled authors give you a surplus of murder, violence, revenge, humor, double crosses, bad decisions, femme fatales, and great writing.

If you're not already reading this series, you should be. And Rio is a great place to start. ( )