Won this book thru the ER Group. I started reading this, but I just couldn't connect with it, so I Pearl Ruled it and ultimately gave it away. I gave it a 1/2 star only to indicate that it was a DNF, it does not represent the quality of the work itself ( )

These were all well crafted stories, but very few of them were satisfying. Three of the four on the last section were especially disappointing in their lack of solid endings. Overall, worth the read, but not my favorite of the Akashic Noir collections. ( )

Another Early Reads from Library Thing.

I've read a few other noir collections published by Akashic Books. Each collection is from a different area. This gives not only a different location for the stories to come from, but even different cultures. They may share the noir attitude but each is its own.

The selection of authors in each book are top notch, in my opinion. They write with the atmosphere of noir prevalent through-out their story. There is a subtlely and at time just a slight taste of the darkness of their tale. Sometimes the ending is not what is expected.

"I Spy With My Little Eye" is about a film critic who has maybe viewed too many movies and is now not able to distinguish life from film.

"Fashion Week" takes place during Fashion Week in Mitte. Can fashion be ecological, progressive, politically correct and still keep on top? Or does the dark side carry more weight and pulls fashion down to the corrupt level that has always been?

There are 13 stories, grouped into 'Stress In The City,' Cops & Gangsters' and 'Berlin Scenes.' There is also a section with a brief bio on each of the writers, giving their creds in the writing world. More interesting reading.

All in all, some excellent reading....and food for thought. ( )

This is a collection of crime-oriented short stories written by authors living in Berlin. Chosen and edited by Thomas Wörtche, the stories range from solid to very bad, but the overall quality is a bit lower than has been the case with the other books in the Akashic Noir series. The center of the collection is padded with lazy entries, including a few that could have been set anywhere, with a simple alteration in the street names. I will admit that I expected more than this collection given Germany's love of crime novels and Berlin's reputation as an artistic center. Berlin is such a unique and vibrant city and it's a shame that some of the stories could have easily been set elsewhere.

Most of my dissatisfaction boiled down to one story that irked. I fail to see the value of writing a story from the point of view of a violent misogynist if the payoff is just to read a graphic description of the narrator achieving his dreams. It's 2019, and this read as both tired and exploitative, and I question the value of reading the ways a man might find women to be gross and disgusting and murder-worthy. This was an author looking to be edgy, while walking down an well-worn path.

Complaints aside, there were some stand-out stories, primarily Local Train by Mark Annas, in which a group of football fans plan the murder of a fan from the rival team. Their comic ineptness doesn't hide the brutality of what they are doing. I Spy with My Little Eye by Ulrich Woelk concerns a reporter drawn in to the story of a missing schoolgirl and thinking hard about his relationship with his own daughter. This story managed to both show a heart underneath a callous exterior and delivered a surprising ending. And while the ending of One of These Days by Robert Rescue was tacked on as an afterthought, the picture Rescue drew of the working class neighborhood of Wedding was wonderful. ( )

Berlin Noir, edited by Thomas Wortche, is another wonderful addition to the Akashic Noir series.

While most of the volumes that I have read so far make an effort to interpret noir in a broader scope than the narrow "dark and crime" definition, I think this one succeeds better than most. Noir is definitely dark, no matter how else one considers it. But the more interesting stories tend to play with the ideas of ethical/unethical, moral/immoral, and of course legal/illegal. Ideally, more than one of these. The better crime based stories look at the crime through a dark lens of ethics or morals, not simply dark criminal activity. And the more peripheral any crime is to the story the better (most of the time).

As a collection from different writers this will likely have stories the reader will like more and less. That is normal and generally can't be avoided. this collection is a strong one and one story has stayed with me for the past month since I read it (yes, I'm late posting this, life happens). The others have come and gone numerous times, usually if something in life makes me think of it. But the first story in the collection involves the ideas I mentioned before coupled with familial obligations and what one must do for a family member. I admit, I didn't anticipate the resolution of the story.

If you like short stories and noir, I would recommend this collection. You may, as I did, discover a couple new writers you want to check out.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss. ( )