Summary
Few European cities have had as disturbed and violent a history as Belfast over the last half-century. For much of that time the Troubles (1968-1998) dominated life in Ireland's second largest city, and during the darkest days of the conflict - in the 1970s and 1980s - riots, bombings and indiscriminate shootings were tragically commonplace. Reflecting a city still divided, Belfast Noir serves as a record of a city transitioning to normalcy, or perhaps as a warning that underneath the fragile peace darker forces still lurk. With stories from Lee Child and more.
Contents
The undertaking / Brian McGilloway
Poison / Ludy Caldwell
Wet with rain / Lee Child
Taking it serious / Ruth Dudley Edwards
Ligature / Gerard Brennan
Belfast punk REP / Glenn Patterson
The reservoir / Ian McDonald
The grey / Steve Cavanagh
Rosie Grant's finger / Claire McGowan
Out of time / Sam Millar
Die like a rat / Garbhan Downey
Corpse flowers / Eoin McNamee
Pure game / Arlene Hunt
The reveller / Alex Barclay.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review:
"Akashic's Noir series, which has topped 60 books in the decade since Brooklyn Noir was released in 2004, zooms in on Northern Ireland's capital city, whose history surely more than qualifies it as a breeding ground for noir. As usual, the book features contributions from writers with close ties to the region in focus; several of them live or were born in Ireland, many of those in Belfast (the book's biggest name, best-selling novelist Lee Child, appears here because his father was from Belfast). The appeal of the the Noir series is that each book operates on two levels. On the first level, you have a collection of mainly fine written stories featuring well-drawn characters and situations; on the second level, you have an exploration of the many sides and personalities of the host city. The books function as literary immersion courses into a city's past and present, presented by writers who are intimately familiar with their subject. A fine premise, executed with remarkable consistency.--Pitt, David Copyright 2014 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review:
"Belfast, with its bleak, murderous history, at last gets an entry in Akashic's acclaimed noir series. The 14 all-new stories range from the time of the Troubles (1968-1999) to today. Staunchly local, the fiction largely hails from authors born or living in Belfast or other Irish locales. Ian McDonald, better known for science fiction, offers "The Reservoir," a brutal tale of a wedding that ends in violence. Bestseller Lee Child, an Englishman long resident in Manhattan whose father was born in Belfast, contributes the unsettling "Wet with Rain," in which some mysterious men from America trick a woman into selling her house. Not all the entries are profound or gloomy. Garbhan Downey's jaunty "Die Like a Rat" opens with a description of "Spotty John Norway's weirdly disfigured corpse." The selections-none really great, none terribly bad-faithfully reflect the Northern Ireland city's lack of ethnic diversity. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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