Amsterdam Noir

(Paperback)

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Description

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.

Brand-new stories by: Michael Berg, Anneloes Timmerije, Murat Isik, Ren Appel, Josh Pachter, Simon de Waal, Hanna Bervoets, Karin Amatmoekrim, Christine Otten, Mensje van Keulen, Max van Olden, Theo Capel, Loes den Hollander, Herman Koch, Abdelkader Benali, and Walter van den Berg.

From the introduction by Ren Appel and Josh Pachter:

Amsterdam has the amenities and, to a certain extent, the feel of a major world city, but one of its most attractive features is its relatively small size. It's easy to navigate on feet, by bike, and via its excellent public transportation network, especially with the semicircular perimeter of its famous Grachtengordel, or ring of concentric canals.Like any other metropolis, though, Amsterdam also has its dark side, its shadowy corners--in other words, there is also an Amsterdam noir. No matter how beautiful, vital, and cheery a city might be, pure human emotions such as greed, jealousy, and the thirst for revenge will rear their ugly heads...with all their negative consequences. Amsterdam is a multidimensional city, populated by a wide assortment of social groups, and not all of those groups agree on what constitutes normal social values and mores. This results in a lively mix...and, as you will see, in problems.

Reviews

Fourteen of The Netherlands' premier authors of crime and literary fiction contributed to this collection, with the editors--top-rated crime authors themselves--providing the 15th. Amsterdam Noir is the latest in Akashic Books' long-running series of place-based crime anthologies. If this enterprise is in part intended to give a flavour of the locale under the authorial microscope, this collection is another success.
--Crime Fiction Lover

Editors Appel and Pachter take an interesting approach to the structuring of this entry in Akashic's Noir series. While the chapters in many of the books in this series are arranged geographically, here the stories are grouped according to their thematic similarities to four classic films noir: Out of the Past, Kiss Me Deadly, Touch of Evil, and They Live by Night. Not only does this approach make the stories more accessible to readers who have never been to Amsterdam and don't know the authors, it also works well as a kind of cross-format read-alike tool. In all, a strong group of notably dark tales of murder and mayhem.
--Booklist

In spotlighting a city known worldwide for sex workers and marijuana, the editors avoid the obvious...Taking the road less traveled is a winning strategy for the editors. The 15 dark takes they've collected provide a variety of methods, motives, and menace, while their movie-themed chapters anchor the varied menu firmly in the noir tradition.
--Kirkus Reviews

This anthology of 15 short crime stories features superior writing from authors largely unknown to an American audience.
--Publishers Weekly

Devil's Island by Mensje van Keulen has been selected as one of the Best Mystery Stories of 2019 by Robert Lopresti of SleuthSayers

A 5-Star excursion in noir fiction.
--Larque Press

This is a story built on details, cleverly used.
--Little Big Crimes, Devil's Island by Mensje van Keulen considered Robert Lopresti's Best Mystery Story Read This Week

A very creepy story, although thankfully not filled with gore and horror. Many surprises along the way.
--Little Big Crimes, The Stranger Inside Me by Loes den Hollander considered Robert Lopresti's Best Mystery Story Read This Week

Amsterdam Noir is an excellent addition to the uncommon mystery anthology series Akashic Noir. In this edition, editors Ren Appel and Josh Pachter selected twenty-two short stories that evoke the noir sensibilities of Amsterdam...I loved Amsterdam Noir and think its selection of stories was excellent and the way they were organized was a stroke of genius.
--Tonstant Weader Reviews

If this enterprise is in part intended to impart a vision of the locale and its residents through the lens of crime, this collection is another success...Meet some of the very best Dutch crime writers, right here in these pages.
--Victoria Weisfeld

Author Bio

Ren Appel published his first thriller, Handicap, in 1987, and has written twenty more, two of which have received the Golden Noose, the annual award for the best Dutch-language crime novel. English translations of his stories have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and several anthologies.

Josh Pachter is an American writer, editor, and translator. His short crime stories have been featured in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, among other places, and his translations of crime fiction by Dutch and Belgian authors appear regularly in EQMM. He lives in Northern Virginia.