cover image Pittsburgh Noir

Pittsburgh Noir

Edited by Kathleen George. Akashic, $15.95 trade paper (300p) ISBN 978-1-936070-93-0

Despite Pittsburgh being labeled the country's most livable city, the fictional citizens populating the 14 high quality stories in Akashic's noir anthology centered on the Steel City have the same dreams, frustrations, passions, and vices as anyone else. Lila Shaara gets things off to a nice start with "Atom Smasher," an ironic story of a laid-off journalist preoccupied with his youthful sexual conquests at the local particle accelerator. An apparently straightforward justified homicide, involving a homeowner protecting his attractive teenage daughter, rankles the investigating officers in editor George's "Intruder," but she packs a wallop into the ending in perhaps the volume's best entry. A similar lethal bite is in store for the reader in Rebecca Drake's "Loaded," which shows that something new still can be done with the repercussions of a married man's affair. Other contributors include Stewart O'Nan, Nancy Martin, and Kathryn Miller Haines. (June)