A short story collection that overall was quite disappointing. Ironically, the few stories I felt were quite strong, were actually the most sterotypical of the Noir genre (downtrodden detectives in dirty offices with sexy femme fatales). Overall, all but one story in this collection failed to resonate with me. Disappointing. ( )

Ellen Datlow suggests in her introduction to Supernatural Noir that noir fiction and supernatural fiction, with its roots in the gothic, have a lot in common. The main character in each tends to be a hard-living guy, usually down to his last flask of scotch, haunted by a sexy dame whose middle name is trouble. So it seemed natural to her to combine the two genres for an original anthology.

Despite my general rule that any anthology edited by Ellen Datlow is one I want to read, I resisted this one for a long time. Detectives looking for ghosts? Eh. Not my thing. But when Supernatural Noir was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award, and two of the novellas contained therein were independently nominated (Lucius Shepard's "Ditch Witch" and Jeffrey Ford's "The Last Triangle," both reviewed here), I decided to take a look. After all, when the table of contents shows writers like Gregory Frost, Laird Barron, Elizabeth Bear, Caitlin R. Kiernan, John Langan and a host of others whose fiction sings to me, I was bound to find something I liked.

And oh, boy, did I ever. This anthology has some of the most exciting fiction published in 2011. This is fiction that will make you uncomfortable, that will haunt you, that will show up in your dreams.

Take, for instance, "Comfortable in Her Skin" by Lee Thomas. Sylvia Newman is a woman who gets sexually excited by rough sex, the more brutal the better. She regularly teases Louis Towne, her married boyfriend, into such a rage that he uses sex as a punishment, not understanding that that's her preference. When he is killed, the first-person narrator, Towne's lawyer, steps into the tale, filling us in on the basis for his fear of Towne: it's not just a normal, physical fear of being a mobster's lawyer, but also a mystical fear that arises from Towne's apparent familiarity with the occult. The lawyer fills us in on what happens when Sylvia and her new lover break into Towne's safe, only to find that Towne still guards it. He knows, because he went to Towne's office himself a few hours later. What he finds there will curdle your blood.

Brian Evenson, who has something of a reputation of not flinching, so to speak, offers "The Absent Eye," in which the first person narrator is a man who lost an eye when he was a child. The absent eye continues to see, though; it just doesn't see this world, or at least, not exactly. This results in the child's institutionalization for fifteen years of sheer horror, until he learns how to work with the entity that seems to share his body -- the entities that seem to share each of ours, actually, though those of us who can see the visual world don't have to act as those entities would like us to, as they have no means of communicating with us. But when that child grows to adulthood, he must work with his, and he does, through a means strange and slightly wonderful. This is the tale that Dashiell Hammett would have written, had he written about the supernatural.

A new story by Laird Barron is always a treat, and "The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven" is no exception. Lorna is an abused wife who has fled into the mountains with her lover, Miranda. She is terrified that Bruce, her husband and a vengeful man, will find her and do her serious injury, if not kill her; he has already broken her leg by throwing her down a flight of concrete stairs. But the cabin is in a genuinely remote location deep in the woods -- though that has its own scariness, especially when Miranda brings home an animal hide that is oddly troubling. Howling wolves seem to magnify the creepiness, and Miranda seems to become ever more remote, disappearing into the woods both physically and mentally. What will become of Lorna? Barron writes of his favorite milieu, the wilds of eastern Oregon, adding to a canon of work that has already made this area as frightening and wild to my imagination as Lovecraft ever made the forests of New England.

Elizabeth Bear's story of a party at a carousel, "The Romance," captivated me with its imagery of painted animals and brass rings. Joe Lansdale's "Dead Sister" is about a private eye who is hired to find out what's been happening to a woman's sister's grave every night. Tom Piccirilli's disturbing "But For Scars" is about a girl who escapes from a hospital and returns to the house where her parents were murdered, now owned by by the narrator, who feels obliged to help her find the murderer. John Langan closes out the anthology with "In Paris, in the Mouth of Kronos," a story of what happens to a torturer after the Iraqi prison has been closed down.

Other stories by such excellent writers as Paul G. Tremblay, Richard Bowes, Nick Mamatas and others are all horrifyingly wonderful. The best way to read these stories is one per sitting, to let them turn over in your mind and disturb your sleep before being replaced by a new, equally distressing tale replaces it and makes your imagination run wild. Read them now, while it is sunny and hot and the days stretch on, because when winter comes, these tales will turn your blood to ice. ( )

Supernatural Noir, edited by Ellen Datlow, is just what the title says it is: an anthology of (all-original) stories featuring noirish tropes - world-weary private detectives, sleazy low-lifes, the glamourous underbelly of the city - interacting with supernatural figures (particularly demons or similar types). As with all anthologies, some stories work better than others, and other readers will like different stories than I did. I've always been fond of Joe R. Lansdale, and his entry here, "Dead Sister," about a wizard-ghoul, is creepy and funny in a sick kind of way; I also enjoyed Lucius Shepard's "Ditch Witch," featuring some very inelegant elves, and "Comfortable in Her Skin," by Lee Thomas kind of got under my skin, while Caitlin R. Kiernan's "The Maltese Unicorn" managed to be funny, witty and seductive all while also being gory and strange, plus she gets points for literary references. But there were a number of stories here that I found sort of unfinished; that is, they just ended without really resolving the tale. That surprised me a little, as usually Datlow is a very competent editor, and one can depend on the high quality of her selections. All the stories here are well-written in that sense, but some of them just feel like the author ran out of steam a page or two before the end. This is for a fairly specific audience of lovers of horror who enjoy quite graphic content (both sexual and horrific); definitely not for everyone. But on balance, I liked more stories than I didn't, so a mild recommendation, but only if you already know you like this kind of stuff, it's certainly not for the horror-genre newbie. ( )

I picked up this collection of short stories with the idea I would read a few and then do a quick review. The concept is a little lost on me. Noir is a genre that often includes the Mafia and private detectives. It's not a genre I read (with some exceptions). But I didn't think about that when I selected this book from NetGalley. I love horror and supernatural and that was all I saw.
This book was an odd collection. The reason I say the concept is lost on me is that I didn't get the reason why some of these stories were considered Noir vs just horror or paranormal. Quite a few stories didn't fit into my understanding of the Noir genre. That may be due to my inexperience with the genre. No matter.
This collection was beyond my expectations. Most of the stories were dark and creepy just they way I like them. Some didn't reveal their supernatural element till nearly the end which lulled me into believing someone had let just a good story slip through.
Some felt forced but those were few compared to the number that just sucked me in and left me wondering when it was over. I couldn't put it down. When I hit that last page, I was disappointed. I wanted more.
Reviewing collections is always difficult for me because I have a difficult time sharing stories without wanting to sit down and talk about each one. Supernatural Noir had sixteen stories and that's a lot to share. I didn't love them all, in fact I think the first story was my least favorite but it still pushed me to continue. I think the first story "The Dingus" gave me a real noir experience as a man searches for a killer only to find that it's not what he expected. (Later a story talks about a dingus that is completely different and really made me feel like this story was more bizarre).
To say what is my favorite is hard but I can tell you which will stick with me for awhile.
The Absent Eye - a story of a boy who loses his eye to discover he can see these strange spirits. Eventually left in an institution he learns how to communicate and agrees to discover what happens to them when they disapper so that the spirits will help him escape. It's a haunting story about commitment and the lengths a person will go for freedom.
Along those same lines is But For Scars about a young woman who escapes an institution because her mother's ghost haunts her bed. The girl makes her way to her old house to find one of her mother's lovers living there. She kills herself in his room, leaving the ghosts with him. (That's a terrible explanation and you will understand when you read it but it's the best I can do).
I do think I have a favorite now that I think about it some more - The Last Triangle. A man finds himself in withdrawal in an elderly woman's garage. She lets him stay and helps him get straight. What she wants in return is his help to save a life. A powerful, touching story about faith, compassion and strength that still makes me feel things long after I have read it.
Pick up a copy of Supernatural Noir. I will warn, this is not a book for children. There is swearing but that's the least of the problems after all the violence and sex. A fun read for any adult who likes paranormal/supernatural and wants to see a different sort of darkness when it comes to the world. ( )

The Supernatural Noir anthology contains 16 original dark fantasy stories edited by Hugo and Bram Stoker award winner Ellen Datlow. Datlow says in her introduction that she asked the writers to provide her with “harder-than-nails stories of the supernatural with at least a few of the trademarks of noir.” To read my full review, go to http://popcornreads.com/?p=1029 ( )