REVIEW: Boston Noir

by Mike Beeman, on March 11th, 2010

Edited by Dennis Lehane

Akashic Books, 2009

Filed Under: Thrillers, Short Stories, Mystery

C4 Ratings.....out of 10
Language..... 7
Entertainment..... 8
Depth..... 6

The Boston Noir collection marks our fair city’s induction in the roving city-themed noir series, “Book Noir,” from Akashic Books. Already the series has seen collections from Brooklyn, San Francisco, Baltimore, and Phoenix, among others. Dennis Lehane is an obvious choice as editor -I’d be be hard-pressed to come up with a close second in terms of Boston crime novelists. He proves a smart choice, as well, and has put together a collection of noir stories as he defines them: working-class tragedies. In this collection, Lehane explores not only crime, or, as he calls it “skuzzy people doing skuzzy things to other skuzzy people,” but explores what the Boston means to the people who live in, and more often just-outside, New England’s second-place city. …
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REVIEW: The Amateur American

by Nico Vreeland, on January 14th, 2010

Author: J. Saunders Elmore

Three Rivers Press, 2009

Filed under: Thrillers, Mystery, Literary

C4 Ratings.....out of 10
Language..... 7
Entertainment..... 5
Depth..... 6

Elmore’s epigraph for The Amateur American is from a John LeCarre novel. Pretty quickly, Elmore’s goal becomes clear: he wants to write a spy-ish thriller with an amateur protagonist.

Not a bad premise. Chuck is back for a second season, so I suppose people like the concept. OK, Chuck is an unfair comparison: Elmore’s a good writer with a funny, entertaining voice, and he creates some great characters.

But some pacing problems and the merging of the thriller narrative with a relatively ordinary young-man-abroad subplot keep this novel from living up to its potential.

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