Cleveland Noir (Akashic Noir)

May 1, 2023

Cleveland, a city of extremes, is a near-perfect location for these dark tales of deception, violence, and despair. Sections of the city are poor and ravaged by violence; others, fat and comfortable, seem insulated from crime but aren't. Ruhlman's "The Ultimate Cure" starts in a tony restaurant on Shaker Square; it ends up with someone dead in an apartment nearby. Three tales--Dana McSwain's "Bus Stop," Susan Petrone's "The Silent Partner," Mary Grimm's "Under the Hill"--have supernatural overtones. Readers will also encounter serial killers, revenge stories, and two tricky tales of crooks duped by other crooks; there's even a poem (Jill Bialosky's "Mock Heart"). A gem of a story starts it off: Paula McLain's "Love Always," an affecting tale of two young losers and a death that didn't have to happen. All of the stories are tied in well with place, and the range of approaches is admirably wide. VERDICT One of the best in a very good series, this title should fly off the shelves.--David Keymer

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 22, 2023
Rust Belt grime runs through each of the 15 stories in this gritty entry in Akashic’s regional noir series. In Sam Conrad’s “Jock Talk,” a gay Native American teen desperately tries to escape his bullying father’s pressure to submit to surgical castration. Michael Ruhlman’s “The Ultimate Cure” finds two lovers plotting to murder one of their ex-wives for her money. Sports and the supernatural mix in Susan Petrone’s “The Silent Partner” to reveal the secret reason the New York Yankees dominated baseball in the 20th century. The anthology’s standouts include Abby L. Vandiver’s “Sugar Daddy,” in which a crooked cop suffers the consequences for corrupting two teenage sisters, and J.D. Belcher’s “The Laderman Affair,” where an impulsive act of violence forces a novice female PI to team up with the murderer she was shadowing. Dirty cops, sex, money, and revenge are the name of the game here—in true noir fashion, there are few happy endings. Anchored firmly in Cleveland’s various neighborhoods, the stories highlight the diversity of contemporary crime fiction. It’s a solid roundup of Midwestern noir.

July 1, 2023
Fifteen new tales of murder and mayhem as diverse as the city that spawned them. How could a city whose main waterway once burned for 20 minutes, with flames reaching as high as five stories, deny its flair for the dramatic? Ruhlman and Headen populate this volume with a host of colorful characters who'd rule the world if they didn't trip over their own feet. Take Caro, the hero of Abby L. Vandiver's "Sugar Daddy," who tries to run some game but ends up a chump. Or Gwen and Ally, two girls from Settler's Landing who have a sweet con going in ritzy Bratenahl until they don't, in Paula McLain's "Love Always." Susan Petrone tells the tale of a sportswriter who gets the interview of a lifetime but fails spectacularly to capitalize on it in "The Silent Partner." So does Calvin, journalist hero of Dana McSwain's "Bus Stop," who has the very specialized gift of speaking to young female murder victims years after their demises but can't bring them justice. Perhaps the saddest tale here is Angela Crook's "Bitter," which describes how the need for revenge can blot out years of hard-earned success. On the flip side, years of profitable petty chiseling can so quickly turn on their heads in editor Headen's "The Book of Numbers." Roxanne, in editor Ruhlman's "The Ultimate Cure," doesn't so much bring destruction upon herself as blunder into it--unlike rock star Anders in Daniel Stashower's "Lenny, but Not Corky," who can't wait to discover disaster on his own doorstep. Ruhlman and Headen draft an outstanding crew of writers to chronicle the misery of folks who can't get out of their own ways.

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