Following the success ofParis Noir, the Akashic Noir Series has expanded to include the famously diverse and sometimes controversial suburbs of this legendary city.A treasure chest of resources for any noir author seeking a more gruesome approach or a more relentless destruction of the soul. One might hope the real Paris suburbs are not so dark and blood drenched. But by the end of the collection, that hope seems almost foolish, and the body found on the quay seems to be the lucky guy in the story.New York Journal of BooksThe short stories center on the suburbs of Paris, fertile soil for all sorts of resentment and violence. . . .For lovers of crime noir short fiction, these are 12 stories of life lived in the raw.Library JournalDark tales shine a bright light on some little-seen parts of greater Paris. Kirkus ReviewsPariss suburbsa mix of slums, posh neighborhoods, fading industrial centers, and the citys notorious housing projects that lie out of the sight of most touristsprovide the setting for [these] 13 tales.Publishers WeeklyFeaturing brand-new stories by:Clo Mehdi, Karim Madani, Insa San, Christian Roux, Marc Villard, Jean-Pierre Rumeau, Timothe Demeillers, Rachid Santaki, Marc Fernandez, Guillaume Balsamo, Anne Secret, Anne-Sylvie Salzman, and Patrick Pcherot. (All stories were written in French and translated into English by Katie Shireen Assef, David Ball, Nicole Ball, and Paul Curtis Daw.)From the introduction by Herv Delouche:The term Greater Paris is in vogue today, for it has an administrative cachet and seems to denote a simple extension of the capitalas if a ravenous Paris need only extend her web. However, it was not our goal to embrace the tenets of the metro areas comprehensive plan, aka theGrand Projet, envisioned as a future El Dorado by the planners and developers. Rather, our aim was to depict the Parisian suburbs in all their plurality and diversity. Without pretending to encompass every spot on the map, we instead opted to give voice and exposure to the localities chosen by the writers who have been part of this adventure. Thus, we decided to adopt the word suburbs in the plural, obviously, for the periphery of the capital is not a homogeneous bloc, nor is it reducible to a clich like the suburban ring . . . Here are thirteen stories, decidedly noir, to be savored without sugar or sweetener.
