Marseille Noir

October 26, 2015
This entry in Akashic’s noir series navigates the seedy side of Marseille with 14 stories that range from the creepily introspective to the downright brutal. One of the highlights is Marie Neuser’s “I’ll Go Away with the First Man Who Says I Love You,” in which a woman catches her husband cheating and gets the ultimate revenge. Also of note are Rebecca Lighieri’s melancholy “What Can I Say?,” in which a drug dealer contributes to the unraveling of a woman whom he’s loved since childhood, and Philippe Carrese’s wry “The Problem with the Rotary,” in which casual violence collides with the mundaneness of everyday life. In Serge Scotto’s “Green, Slightly Gray,” a pair of young lovers get more than they bargain for in La Plaine, a neighborhood where corruption lies just underneath its bohemian veneer, and darkness lurks in the most unlikely places in Patrick Colomb’s “Silence Is Your Best Friend.” Lesser offerings, however, make this volume a mixed bag.

October 15, 2015
Gritty from east to west, Marseille is the perfect venue for the latest in Akashic's venerable Noir series. While earlier entries in this 70-volume series have sometimes been bleak and atmospheric, this one is all red meat. Readers can watch villains stalk their prey, as in Rene Fregni's "The Dead Pay a Price for the Living," Emmanuel Loi's spooky "On Borrowed Time," and Salim Hatubou's quirky "The Warehouse for People from Before." They can see killers confront the fallout of their crimes, as in Marie Neuser's "I'll Go Away with the First Man Who Says I Love You" and Serge Scotto's poignant "Green, Slightly Gray." Sometimes they can even watch the blow fall, as in "Silence Is Your Best Friend," by Patrick Coulomb. Minna Sif in "The Red Mule" and Francois Thomazeau in "Extreme Unction" know that some people are complicit in their fates, while Philippe Carrese's "The Problem with the Rotary" shows the cosmic injustice of mortality. Drugs and death pair up in Rebecca Lighieri's "What Can I Say?"; Christian Garcin points out an unexpected consequence to having a job in organized crime in "The Josettes Really Liked Me." And Francois Beaune in "Katrina," Pia Petersen in "The Prosecution," and editor Fabre in "Joliette Sound System" all show the disaster than ensues when social support systems fail. Just as Marseille is tailor-made for noir, this dark banquet is tailor-made for noir fans.

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December 15, 2015
In 2008, Akashic's wide-ranging Noir series visited Paris. Now it lands in France's second-largest city, one with a rich history dating back more than 2,500 years, a vibrant culture, and, as noted by the editor in his introduction, a reputation for violence. As usual for this landscape-focused series, the stories spotlight the city's hidden corners, its rarely seen underbelly, its darker personality. The stories, all translated from the French by David and Nicole Ball, are varied in tone and subject matter but are united by vivid and evocative writing, as well as by a distinctive take on the city. Another strong entry in a series that should be required reading for crime fans focused on setting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)