There are a lot of layers of St. Louis life for authors to pull from to fuel their stories’ emotional turbulence: economic disparities, racism and segregation, urban decay, failing school systems, police brutality, environmental disaster zones, and so forth. But at the heart of nearly every story in “St. Louis Noir” is someone who makes mistakes and keeps making mistakes long after any sensible person would have stopped and re-evaluated their life decisions. Some stories are like artful train wrecks, in which readers can barely look away before seeing what disastrous turn the protagonist’s life takes.

You can read my full review of ST. LOUIS NOIR at the Current independent student newspaper website. A reviewer copy of the paperback was provided for free by Akashic Books; no other compensation was offered for this review, nor was a review required to receive the book. ( )

This is the latest installment of Akashic Noir’s Midwest series, following Chicago, the Twin Cities and Kansas City. In total, the Akashic Noir Series has about 75 titles, set around the world.

This particular collection has 14 entries, 13 dark, short stories and one poetic interlude. I recognized six of the authors for a variety of reasons. John Lutz and Scott Phillips are nationally recognized for their work: Lutz for “Single White Female” and Phillips for “The Ice Harvest.” Poet Michael Castro is the City of St. Louis’ Poet Laureate and locally famous before he was awarded the position. Jedidiah Ayres I’ve heard of from writer Joe Schwartz, and L. J. Smith I know from the local writing scene. Calvin Wilson is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

It was fun reading stories that take is familiar landmarks. The book is broken into four section, much like the metropolitan area itself: the City, the County, and Across the River (Illinois). The poetic interlude speaks to the large network of creative talent that call St. Louis home.

Phillips did a bang-up job with his Introduction: “High and Low Culture.” That describes St. Louis to a tee, past and present.

The collection gets off to strong start with the first story, “Abandoned Places” by S. L. Coney. In this story, after Ian’s father disappears, most assume he’s dead. But Ian isn’t so sure. He follows his stepmother one night and discovers that his father is held prisoner. There is some wonderfully vivid imagery especially involving the slitting of a throat. Without giving anything away (I hope), that one sentence that stood out among the rest was: “The skin gaped on either side, of that opening, giving (deleted to prevent a spoiler detail) a second smile.” This always gives me the shivers.

While “Abandoned Places” was my favorite, my least favorite was “Deserted Cities of the Heart,” by Paul D. Marks. It was rather existential, really didn’t have a plot and mostly seemed to center around loner Daniel Hayden lying under the Gateway Arch.

The rest of the authors cover the bases; it’s all here: a 1950s story about racism that also has no plot, a mentally unstable African-American man after a tour in Vietnam, slackers, femme fatales, divorces, death, missing children, skinheads, ending with a twist, convicts and drugs and drug dealers.

All in all, except for the first story, I felt that all the others were just okay. St. Louis Noir receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. ( )

I grew up in St. Louis, where my mother was a probation officer (more than one story took place on a block I knew). I'm also a big fan of mysterie, and have liked some of the other titles in this series. I thought all the stories were well-written and suspensful, and nearly all of them had gripping noir styles, with some great surprise endings. The underside of The Lou is captured in so many of the stories, and I'm glad there were black and white storytellers in a city where black and white stories are not often told together. Highly recommended, although locals may appreciate it more than those who don't know the place. ( )

I've read a few others in this series, most recently Chicago Noir, and thought that this one did not compare favorably to the others. I tried 3 times but could not make myself get through all of these. Somehow, the stories here felt different than others in the series. I think that I'll skip this series in the future, sad to say. ( )

This collection of stories was not at all what a waste expecting. A fan of Hammett and Chandler and classic noir stories, I was expecting atmospheric mystery if not classic detective. Instead there is just a collection of dark tales. Most with no mystery element at all. ( )