Sacramento Noir

The disappointing latest entry in Akashic’s regional noir series (after Honolulu Noir) compiles 13 stories about racism and economic violence in California’s capital. The highlight is Naomi J. Williams’s “Sakura City,” which depicts the grim sociopolitics of an insular Japanese neighborhood facing gentrification in the 1950s. Other strong entries include Maceo Montoya’s “A Significant Action,” which centers on a Chicano artist collective being infiltrated by the FBI in the 1960s, and José Vadi’s “Downriver, November 1949,” a sizzling crime story steeped in the boozy atmosphere of old Sacramento, complete with speakeasies, gambling dens, and hardboiled prose (“A dirty way out is the only way I’ve stayed clean”). Unfortunately, most of the collection only tenuously fits the “noir” bill; many of the stories are atmospheric but incident-light slices of meandering literary fiction with little appeal for mystery fans. Some work on their own terms—William T. Vollmann’s “A Reflection of the Public” is a suitably somber drama about a lovesick, homeless military veteran—but others come and go without making much of an impression. This isn’t up to the series’ par. (Mar.)