How could I resist a book of noir stories set in my hometown of Portland, Oregon? While the quality of stories varied, there were none I disliked and some were downright delicious. It was also great fun reading stories set in familiar neighborhoods with landmarks I recognized. I recommend this book to anyone who like noir, or is from Portland, and especially both. ( )

A slim collection of tales, quite entertaining, nothing really stood out as great or awful though ( )

A fairly recent Portland transplant, I bought this book as a gift for a guest and read it before the book left with them. Admittedly I'm not a regular reader of short stories -- in fact, this might have been the first compilation of short stories I've ever read. Noir is also not a genre I normally read. In other words I didn't have expectations.

I enjoyed the stories by Luciana Lopez, Floyd Skloot, Dan DeWeese, and Kimberly Warner-Cohen the most. Overall the stories that make up the compilation paint a dark but humorous portrait of the city of Portland's inhabitants.

Front to cover I should think that not every single story will appeal to any individual reader, but, if you're happy to skip over the bits you don't like, many Portlanders will find enough within to be sufficiently entertained, especially for those with a fondness for short stories. However, I'm not sure I'd recommend the book to anyone unfamiliar with Portland and its quirkiness. ( )

Portland Noir is a collection of original short stories that is all over the map -- if the map is of the Rose City. The stories are set in different neighborhoods that collectively make up the seedy underbelly of Portland.

The anthology, edited by Kevin Sampsell, is part of the Akashic Books Noir series -- 'a groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.'

The Portland stories take readers to many a gritty, greasy corner of Portland, where junkies break into the wrong houses, lesbians fantasize about strangling the men in their beds, and love gets strange. The stories come in many shades of dark, from creepy (“Baby, I’m Here”) to clever (“Shanghaied”); violent (“The Wrong House”) to sadly sweet (“Alzheimer’s Noir”).

If there is anything generally missing, it is . . .

Full review posted on Rose City Reader. ( )