South Central Noir ed. by Gary Phillips

South Central Noir is a spectacular addition to the Akashic Noir Series. Here's the thing. I always know each volume in the Noir Series will be interesting and enjoyable, but some locations simply are more noir than others. In some...

The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories edited by Yu Chen and Gina Kanyu Wang

The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories is an anthology of Chinese fantasy and science fiction by female and non-binary authors and translated into English. There are seventeen short stories as well as five critical essays on Chinese science fiction....

The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions by Kerry Greenwood

What could be better than a new Phryne Fisher novel? How about several Phryne stories all in one book? The Lady with the Gun Asks the Questions gives us seventeen short stories that have Phryne solving mysteries almost in an...

Palm Springs Noir by Barbara Demarco-Barrett

Palm Springs Noir is the most recent of the Akashic Noir series. Set in the legendary resort city about a hundred miles from Los Angeles. In any resort area, there is always an innate tension between those who visit and...

Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen

Land of Big Numbers is an anthology of ten stories by Te-Ping Chen. They are either set in China or feature Chinese emigres abroad. Chen is a journalist who has lived in China and provides an acute sense of place...

The Year’s Best Science Fiction by Jonathan Strahan

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Volume 1 is a huge anthology of science fiction short (and not-s-short stories) that was refreshing in its breadth and speaks to a bright future for science fiction. With twenty-eight stories, it's about twice the...

The (Other) You by Joyce Carol Oates

The (Other) You is an anthology of short stories by the incomparable Joyce Carol Oates. There are fifteen stories in this book and not one disappoints, though a few left me feeling devastated. In some ways, this book is the...

Speculative Los Angeles by Denise Hamilton

Speculative Los Angeles seems like the start of another fabulous Akashic series. I hope it is. Akashic publishes a series of noir anthologies focused on different cities around the world. Speculative Los Angeles is a similar anthology focused on speculative...

Miami Noir: The Classics ed. by Les Standiford

Miami Noir: The Classics takes a long look back at noir stories from the past. Editor Les Standiford cleverly excerpted novels to provide a broader view of classic noir from Miami. The stories were published between 1926 and 2006, eighty...

Tales from the Hinterland by Melissa Albert

Tales from the Hinterland is a perfect companion to The Hazel Wood  and The Night Country, two books about the adventures of Alice and her friend Atticus Finch as she explores the world of her grandmother, the author of Tales...

Belgrade Noir ed. by Milorad Ivanovic

Belgrade Noir is an excellent installment in the Akashic Noir series of traveling anthologies. This one takes us to Belgrade with a reporter editor who did an excellent job of choosing stories. Serbia, like the rest of the Balkan nations,...

Tampa Bay Noir edited by Colette Bancroft

Tampa Bay Noir is an excellent addition to the Akashic Noir series of anthologies. Each edition of this series is edited by a local, usually an author, a bookseller, or book critic. In this edition, the editor is Colette Bancroft,...

Addis Ababa Noir ed. by Maaza Mengiste

Addis Ababa Noir is another edition of the fantastic Akashic Noir collection of anthologies. There are fourteen short stories, though few are what I would normally think of as noir. Maaza Mengiste is a literary writer and most of the...

The Awkward Black Man by Walter Mosley

Walter Mosley is best known for his mysteries, especially Easy Rawlins the famed L.A. detective. He is a master of noir, but I am more certain that readers a hundred years in the future will be reading The Awkward Black...

Berkeley Noir edited by Jerry Thompson and Owen Hill

Berkeley Noir is an anthology of noir short stories that take place in Berkeley, that famous next-door neighbor of San Francisco known for its protests and activism. In many ways, this anthology fulfills all the stereotypes of Berkeley while challenging...