Vancouver Noir: Akashic Noir

Description

Following the success of Montreal Noir and Toronto Noir, the Akashic Noir Series now moves to the western side of the great nation of Canada. Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighbourhood or location within the city of the book.

Sam Wiebe is the author of the Vancouver crime novels Last of the Independents, Invisible Dead, and Cut You Down. Wiebe's work has won an Arthur Ellis Award and the Kobo Emerging Writers Prize, and he was the 2016 Vancouver Public Library Writer in Residence. His short fiction has appeared in ThugLit, Spinetingler, and subTerrain, among other places.

Vancouver is the noirest city in the country, and probably one of the noirest in the world. It's a port city, with its stubbornly ungentrified neighbourhoods kicking against one of the world's craziest real estate scenes, with strong Indigenous and Asian presence as a foundational urban principle, not to mention a history of gruesome crime and political intrigue...[Vancouver Noir] will do the work to wrench Vancouver's identity away from the banality of real estate into something chewy, like literary murder. --Toronto Star This collection is not just for those interested in Vancouver or in noir. The stories here are really entertaining and will keep you reading. Vancouver is 'a city in flux, ' writes Wiebe, 'a city struggling to redefine itself. A city under siege.' While both the good and bad exist here, modern noir thrives on that grey. In the meantime, its writers are excellent tour guides and Vancouver Noir is a page-turner you won't want to put down. --The Ormsby Review The 14 new stories here--selected by renowned Vancouver crime novelist Sam Wiebe, who has himself contributed a tale--are by a heavy-hitting roster of local talent, including Carleigh Baker, Dietrich Kalteis, Sheena Kamal, Linda L. Richards, Timothy Taylor, and Yasuko Thanh. --Georgia Straight The rain-soaked Pacific Northwest may not be a tradition setting for 'noir' but with a city in flux, like Vancouver, there's no shortage of incisive, mysterious, violent stories, touching on the city's housing crisis, its thriving movie industry, and many more mysteries. Contributors include Nathan Ripley, Sheena Kamal, and the collection's editor, Sam Wiebe. This is the perfect balance of captivating page-turners and hard-hitting social noirs. --CrimeReads The beauty of the Akashic series of noir short story anthologies is that they offer local writers a chance to say 'here's our town.' This crop of writers, assembled and edited by Sam Wiebe, succeeds in a gritty, moody way. --New York Journal of Books Despite its rainy weather, Vancouver has a sunny disposition: diverse, optimistic, welcoming. But editor Wiebe maintains that it has its share of urban troubles: poverty, drugs, violence. Gentrification may make Vancouver's crime look a little less gritty, but it's just as corrosive...Given the book's mix of wily pros, moody misfits, bewildered bystanders, and a touch of the supernatural, Wiebe makes a strong case that as far as crime is concerned, Vancouver is 'a city like any other.' --Kirkus Reviews The latest Akashic 'Noir' collection features stories by Canadian writers, both crime writers and not, residents and expats, with stories all about characters who live in gritty everyday Vancouver, BC, settings...For fans of the city, noir fiction, and the series. --Library Journal Vancouver Noir...keeps its quality as high as its characters' moral standards are low...Akashic Books, publisher of an excellent regional noir anthology series, gives Vancouver a pat-down. --Shelf Awareness for Readers Indeed, the 21st century has already given us an abundance of noir-themed Vancouver texts. These include a bevy of true crime books, several photo histories, and more than one noir anthology. A nadir comes this fall with the arrival of a new Vancouver noir anthology from Brooklyn-based small press Akashic Books. Akashic, with a long-running series of city-specific noir fiction anthologies including Toronto, Montreal, Buenos Aires, Singapore, and even Cape Cod, offers up what might very well be the crown jewel of Vancouver noir texts. --BrokenPencil Wiebe and the 13 other mostly Canadian contributors to this solid anthology expose the seedy underbelly that belies the Vancouver known to tourists and fans of the many films shot in Hollywood North...Noir aficionados will find plenty to like. --Publishers Weekly Another winner is this always-interesting series and a real treat for fans of short crime fiction. --Booklist Included in Little Big Crimes' The Best Mystery Story I read This Week: R.M. Greenaway's The Threshold and Sheena Kamal's Eight Game-Changing Tips on Public Speaking Vancouver Noir is one of my favorites of the Akashic noir collection. It is eminently readable with vibrant characters and haunting stories. Every entry gives us a sterling example of the city I didn't get a chance to see when I was visiting. The collection's authors are all renowned writers, as one would expect from a city like Vancouver. --The Cyberlibrarian