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"New Orleans Noir (Akashic Noir)"

(Reviewed by Poornima Apte AUG 14, 2007)

Until Katrina happened nearly two years ago, New Orleans brought to our minds Mardi Gras, sub-tropical, humid evenings, the famous French Quarter and above all--romance. Of course all that changed with the hurricane and the two names--New Orleans and Katrina are now inextricably linked together.

It is fitting then that Akashic’s New Orleans Noir, a set of short stories set in the Crescent City, is divided into two sections: Pre (Before the Levees Broke) and Post-K (Life in Atlantis) as editor Julie Smith categorizes them. Even before the storm hit, there was a good bit of longing for the New Orleans of yesteryear. These days, a character complains in James Nolan’s Open Mike: “most of the shops are Pakistani joints selling Mardi Gras masks made in China.” Even the crime has become watered down with the city streets being filled with “gutter punks, their mangy mutts, and older kids playing dress up.”

Noir fiction is a derivative of noir movies--stories in which the protagonist is often not the detective but the victim, accomplice or perpetrator. One of the Pre-K stories in the collection, Algiers by David Fulmer, is a classic example of a noir short story well told. The perpetrator, Valentin St. Cyr makes quick work of a nagging gambler in Algiers, one of the many wards  in the city.

Since this is New Orleans, you can never leave without some beautiful stories about race relations. Particularly memorable here are Two-Story Brick Houses by Patty Friedman in which a young Jewish girl desperately tries to measure up to her gentile classmates; and Loot by editor Julie Smith, in which a black couple is a victim of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The Battling Priests of Corpus Christi by Jervey Tervalon is so direct in its portrayal of racism that it ends up being one of the most arresting stories in the collection.

Many of the writers who contributed to this collection continue to live in the city. As Julie Smith writes in her story, they continue to live in a state that has been cheated and dumped on by everybody: FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, the administration and the local officials. What’s needed, she writes of her characters, is vindication. This need for a “lift” also holds true for the locals who don’t want the city to be forgotten like the lost city of Atlantis. Incidentally, it is worth mentioning that a small percentage of the profits from New Orleans Noir will go toward the city’s public library.

Undoubtedly each reader of this wonderful collection will take away a favorite and picking one from many will be a tough choice. Christine Wiltz’s Night Taxi when a cabbie gets caught in an out-of-towner’s misdoings is particularly well done. My personal favorite was Greg Herren’s Annunciation Shotgun where an unsuspecting landlord becomes an accomplice to murder. The expert way in which the author has used Katrina to good effect in the story is fun and unexpected. It makes you take a second look at the gorgeous cover picture and wonder just how many secrets the storm laid bare and, equally important, how many more it didn’t.

• Amazon readers rating: from 8 reviews

Read a chapter excerpt from Loot at publisher's site

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Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)

Rebecca Schwartz Mysteries:

• Death Turns a Trick (1982)
• The Sourdough Wars (1984)
• Tourist Trap (1986)
• Dead in the Water (1991)
• Other People's Skeletons (1993)

Paul McDonald Series:

• True Life Adventure (1985)
• Huckleberry Friend (1987)

Skip Langdon series:

• New Orleans Mourning (1990)
• The Axeman's Jazz (1991)
• Jazz Funeral (1993)
• New Orleans Beat (1994)
• House of Blues (1995)
• The Kindness of Strangers (1996)
• Cresent City Kill (1997)
• 82 Desire (1998)

Skip Langdon and Talba Wallis:

• Mean Woman Blues (2003)

Talba Wallis series:

• Louisiana Hotshot (2001)
• Louisiana Bigshot (2002)
• Louisiana Lament (2004)
• PI on a Hot Tin Roof (2005)

Books in the Akashic Noir Series (Alphabetical Order):

• Baltimore Noir edited by Laura Lippman (May 2006)
• Boston Noir edited by Dennis Lehane (Nivember 2009)
• Bronx Noir edited by by S.J. Rozan (August 2007)
• Brooklyn Noir edited by Tim McLoughlin (June 2004)
• Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics edited by Tim McLoughlin (June 2005)
• Chicago Noir edited by Neal Pollack (2005)
• D.C. Noir edited by George Pelecanos (February 2006)
• D.C. Noir 2: The Classics edited by George Pelecanos (February 2006)
• Delhi Noir by Hirsh Sawhney (August 2009)
• Detroit Noir edited by E.J. Olsen and John C. Hocking (November 2007)
• Dublin Noir : The Celtic Tiger vs. The Ugly American edited by Ken Bruen (March 2006)
• Haiti Noir edited by Edwidge Danticat (January 2011)
• Havana Noir edited by Achy Obejas (October 2007)
• Indian Country Noir edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martinez (June 2010)
• Istanbul Noir edted by Mustafa Ziyalan and Amy Spangler (November 2008)
• Las Vegas Noir edited by Jarret Keene and Todd James Pierce (May 2008)
• London Noir edited by Cathi Unsworth (August 2006)
• Lone Star Noir edited by Bobby Byrd and Johnny Byrd (October 2010)
• Los Angeles Noir edited by Jarret Keene and Todd James Pierce (May 2008)
• Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics edited by Denise Hamilton (April 2010)
• Manhattan Noir edited by Lawrence Block (April 2006)
• Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics edited by Lawrence Block (September 2008)
• Mexico City Noir edited by Paco Ignacio Taibo II (February 2010)
• Miami Noir edited by Les Standiford (November 2006)
• Moscow Noir edited by Natalia Smirnova & Julia Goumen (June 2010)
• New Orleans Noir edited by Julie Smith (April 2007)
• Orange County Noir edited by Gary Phillips (April 2010)
• Paris Noir edited by Aur�lien Masson (November 2008)
• Philadelphia edited by Carlin Romano (November 2010)
• Phoenix Noir edited by Patrick Milikin (November 2009)
• Portland Noir edited by Kevin Sampsell (June 2009)
• Richmond Noir edited by Andrew Blossom, Briand Castleberry & Tom De Haven (March 2010)
• Rome Noir edited by Chiara Stangalino and Maxim Jakubowski (February 2009)
• Queens Noir edited by Robert Knightly (January 2008)
• San Francisco Noir (October 2005)
• San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics (February 2009)
• Seattle Noir edited by Curt Colbert (June 2009)
• Toronto Noir edited by Janine Armin and Nathaniel G. Moore (May 2008)
• Trinidad Noir edited by by Lisa Allen-Agostini and Jeanne Mason (August 2008)
• Twin Cities Noir edited by Julie Schaper and Steven Horwitz (June 2006)
• Wall Street Noir edited by Peter Spiegelman (June 2007)

 

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Book Marks:

• Official website for Julie Smith
• Writers Write interview with Julie Smith
• Fiction Addition interview with Julie Smith
• Printed Matter Julie Smith and Rev. Jim Jones
• All Info reivew of Mean Woman Blues
• Table of Contents for New Orleans Noir
• MostlyFiction.com review of San Francisco Noir 2
• MostlyFiction.com review of Boston Noir
• MostlyFiction.com review of Mexico City Noir
• MostlyFiction.com review of Moscow Noir
• MostlyFiction.com review of Philadelphia Noir

 

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About the Author:

Julie Smith was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia. She attended the University of Mississippi, where she majored in journalism. After graduation, she bought a bus ticket to New Orleans and found a job writing features for the New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE. After one year, she moved to San Francisco, but unfortunately was unable to get a job for the San Fransico Chronicle in the newsroom. Instead she had to settle for beauty editor.

She quit to form Invisible Ink, a freelance writing firm, with two other woman, one of whom was fellow mystery writing Marcia Muller until 1982, when she published Death Turns a Trick. She struggled along until 1991 when the first Skip Langdon novel, New Orleans Mourning, won the the Edgar for best novel.

in 1996, she married and moved back to New Orleans. After inventing her new P.I. character, Talba Wallis, she took the state borad's Private Investigator course and received her P.I. licence in 2001.

Smith lives in New Orleans in a 1830s Creole town house with a ghost and serial murder story.