Hopeton HayReseñas

This is another solid entry into Akashic Books wonderful series of Noir short stories based upon a single location. My favorite stories were 'Reflections' by Amanda Moore and 'The Good Neighbor' by Jeff Abbott. Honorable mention goes to 'Bangface vs. Cleaning Solutions, LLC' by Andrew Hilbert which is one of the most bizarre private eye stories I've ever read. This is a wonderful collection of stories.

I always enjoy the books in the Akashic noir series. This was no differ. There were a lot of strong stories. I don't think they captured the feel of Austin as well as I'd hoped. My biggest disappointment was that I found the final story to be a disappointment. But one disappointment out of 14 stories is good.

Yet another Akashic Books anthology of noir stories, this one set in Austin, Texas, the notoriously weird city that stands out from the rest of Texas. I've never been to Austin, but if there is one thing I know about it, it is that a lot has changed from how Austin used to be as more people have migrated there from out of state, property costs have increased, and developers have changed the feel of Austin. Many of the authors set their stories with this in mind, and you get a sense that they want to "Keep Austin Weird."

When reading anthologies, I tend to jump around and, often, I'm left with the longer stories at the end. This benefited me as the last two stories I read (about 30 pages each) were the stand outs for me. Amy Gentry's "Stitches" has a visiting lecturer returning to the University of Texas co-op where she lived as a student and is flooded with memories of her time there and the people she met, including a free-spirited woman she connected with just before the woman disappeared. Is there more to the woman's disappearance than just the transient nature of college and co-ops?

Miriam Kuznets "Saving" also revisits the past. In the late 80s, the narrator gets a job from a friend helping AIDS patients. When the friend dies, she gets caught up in trying to figure out what her job really was.

As always with these books, your mileage may vary. Some stories need the backdrop of the city setting, while others just seem to have landmarks sprinkled in to meet the assignment. Overall, this was one of the stronger collections.

Austin Noir is another book in the Akashic Noir series that I've read and really liked. The introduction really grabbed me. Yes, I've always heard that if you want to move to Texas, move to Austin. The editors' introduction, appropriately titled "We Hear Dallas Is Nice," offered me a new and seemingly honest perspective. It also offered a one or two sentence description of each neighborhood. This was very helpful. All in all, a short but great way to begin my literary tour of Austin.

Some of my favorites stories:

Part I - Ace Atkins' "Stunts: So real I felt I was watching an actual Western.
Amanda Moore's "Reflections": Quite the surprise ending.
Jeff Abbott's "The Good Neighbor": Wow! What a story! I don't know what to believe, but the ending was creepy.

Part II - Loved every story in this section. The best part of the entire book.

Part III - Amy Gentry's "Stitches": This one's a reread for sure. A great story.

A solid short story collection.

Like most of the others I've read from the Akashic Noir series, Austin Noir has some gems and some relative duds. This is probably the series' greatest strength and weakness; there's a little something for everyone, but it's tough to get to 5-star ratings when trying to please as many people as possible.

The ghost of a previous Austin haunts this collection, as the city loses its former character under the weight of constant growth (like so many before it, such as Vegas, Miami, Nashville, San Francisco, etc.). To quote a character in Lee Thomas's story, "The city used to have some cool. Now it's just popular." That theme echoes across most of these stories, with varying degrees of resonance.

For my money, standout stories here include "Stunts" by Ace Atkins (an aging stuntman blurs the line between his art and life), "Rush Hour" by Richard Z Santos (where everyone is a victim eventually), the grim "Charles Bronson" by Lee Thomas (no one outruns the sins of their past in this collection), and "Stitches" by Amy Gentry (a meandering whodunit journey through the unreliable characters populating days of college past).

The lows may be forgettable, but the highs in this collection are enjoyable enough to make the effort of finding them worthwhile.

"Austin Noir" is an anthology of short stories that explore Texas capital. It takes you on a journey through he darker side of that area. From the suburbs to downtown, the stories in this collection feature a diverse range of characters and perspectives, all of whom are struggling with some form of darkness or danger. This collection does not shy away from really capturing everything - it seems no topic is off limits. This allows the reader to really feel like they are immersed in the city and its history. Overall, "Austin Noir" is a well-crafted and engaging collection of stories that will appeal to fans of crime fiction and anyone interested in exploring the darker side of the city of Austin.

While I didn't find any low moments in this collection (and frankly low moments are very rare in the Akashic Noir series) I didn't find many high moments (not finding a half dozen high moments seems even more rare). I did think the very last story, "Bangface vs. Cleaning Solutions, LLC” by Andrew Hilbert was hilarious. It was ridiculous and juvenile...and fun. I'm on the fence if I'd like to read a longer tale with the titular character in it...I'm not sure if that would be too much of a good thing, but honestly, that story alone would be worth picking up this latest collection. There are plenty of other stories that are good, but I didn't think most rose to the level of great in comparison to the long line of Akashic books I've read previously.

“Keep Austin Weird,” the bumper stickers and T-shirts say. “Growing up, Austin was cool because people around the country had heard of us but no one actually ever came here,” says the protagonist of Richard Z. Santos’s “Rush Hour.” “Then computer guys and Californians showed up, and now my old neighborhood is nothing but condos and oat milk.” As the editors note in their introduction, Austin has always been a little strange by Texas standards, but it was once strange in a way that was still recognizably Texan (“a touchstone of sixties counterculture with a Texas twang that made it less pretentious”), before the influx of high tech stretched the city’s infrastructure to its limits and pushed housing prices beyond the means of the lower- and middle-classes. In tackling Austin, Akashic has compiled another winning volume in its Noir series. Each story is memorable in its own way, but I especially liked the most noirish: Jeff Abbott’s “The Good Neighbor,” in which the title character has her suspicions about a young widow and her stepson; Amanda Moore’s “Reflections,” in which the recent Texas ice storms provide cover for a murder; and Lee Thomas’s “Charles Bronson,” a revenge tale about an ex-con hired to work security for a developer. I also enjoyed Andrew Hilbert’s not-just-weird-but-Austin-weird “Bangface vs. Cleaning Solutions, LLC,” in which a PI’s search for a straying husband uncovers an surprising approach to Austin’s homeless problem. And it’s always a pleasure to read a new Ace Atkins story; the one here, “Stunts,” reintroduces us to Jason Colson, stuntman father of Quinn and Caddy Colson (if you don’t know the Quinn Colson series, by all means, check it out). Highly recommended, as expected for entries in this series.

This is a compelling collection of short stories in the best traditions of Akashic Books noir series. I have read a number of these books and Austin Noir did not disappoint. Fifteen authors, each of whom wrote a story that left me wondering just how it was going to play out in the end. Once I began the collection I was reluctant to set it down until finished. Full disclosure: I received a complimentary copy for the purpose of this review.

I’m always a little heartbroken when an Akashic Noir collection doesn’t work for me. After 3 amazing collections last year, Akashic’s first noir collection of 2023 is a disappointment. There were only three stories I enjoyed: Stunts by Ace Atkins, Reflections by Amanda Moore, and Stitches by Amy Gentry. I loved the main character in Stunts. Moore’s Reflections was delightfully twisty, and Gentry built a complex tale that combined a missing woman, a dead body, mystery, and a sad search for answers with a great ending. The rest of this anthology is filled with mediocre writing, boring plots, and terrible endings. Overall, this is a big miss for me and I hope this isn’t a harbinger of what is to come in the rest of this year’s Akashic Noir collections. I really hope it’s just an outlier.

If you ever want to get an idea of what life would be like living in Austin Texas, which most people would agree would be very different than living in any other part of Texas, than read these 14 short stories in the latest Akashic Noir series.
As with most sets of short stories, especially by as many different authors as there are stories, you usually will find some that don't quite make the top list. Since this eclectic group of writers are overwhelmingly either Austin natives or recent/long term residents they come close to that high bar of excellent writing, an edgily intriguing story and of course, since its noir, at least one death per …...
The stories range from the near down and outers to the fairly affluent and a substantial set of those straddling the permutations in between. You get one quick robbery that melts faster than the current glaciers in the Swiss Alps to a homicide tracing a long term plan of possible patricide vengeance that has the unsatisfying, but not unusual, finale of wealth rules. The usual attributes of greed, revenge, sex, stupidity and violence make their way in one way or another regardless of what section, class or social setting you may find yourself in Austin. A theme that is interlaced throughout most of these stories is the unrelenting social force of gentrification persistently erasing much of the eclectic aspects of Austin life that has made it so unique and thus a magnet for its diverse multicultural populace.
An excellent addition to this excellent Noir series which is now international in scope.

4 out of 5 stars Another great addition to the Akashic Noir series!  A strong assortment of stories set in and around Austin, Texas, taking the reader on a journey to the darker side of the city.  I was familiar with a couple of the authors and discovered some great new-to-me authors (one of the reasons I enjoy this anthology series so much is reading authors who would normally not be on my radar).  As with all short story collections, I found some stronger than others, but overall I would give a high recommendation.

Overall, I really liked the stories chosen for "Austin Noir," and especially loved the "character" of the city itself. Like my hometown (Chicago), gentrification (now currently mass exodus and violence) shapes cities, and its people, is so very many ways. I loved the story about the retired stuntman ("Stunts") the most, being reminiscent of Old Hollywood and its migration to other cities, the old 1980s movies, Burt Reynolds and those old cop chasing films that were SO much less violent than today. I know the subject is noir, but it would have been nice to have a few upbeat and less depressing stories, but I guess it is hard to imbue humor into the darkness. Some of the writing seemed a bit simplistic, but all of the stories were technically well written. Overall, a pretty strong recommend.

Library Thing review; Austin Noir. A guide to Austin, this is not the Austin of Austin City Limits. But, just as exciting. The dark side the city makes for some great short stories. As always, some stories work better than others. The stories work well as noir, and as studies of people in various circumstances. From poverty to very comfortable, single or married, life's varied circumstances and the paths to a life outside the accepted behaviors in our society. I found it challenging and exciting. Reading time well spent.

I admit I was disappointed in "Austin Noir ". A majority of the Noir book series have been terrific but I found this particular one filled with rather depressing stories. What's interesting is that Austin as a city has such warmth and delightful energy. I feel reluctant to recommend this book unless you are a reader of very sad stories. I have to confess I don't mind dark humor in a story but I do mind reading one story after another that just makes me feel blah. I would have to say skip Austin Noir and if you can head to the city of Austin for a wonderful experience and definitely indulge in the music scene.

In this collection representing Austin, Texas the stories are all noir, but several are elevated noir. A robbery goes wrong, a retired stuntman who owes money has a showdown at a fundraiser for his own medical expenses. A murderous attorney double-crosses her murderous double-crossing mother – and gets double-crossed in return. A teacher dying of leukemia gets involved with a group of teenage credit card skimmers.

There’s of course a lot of crime and murder, but a thread running through many of the stories is the massive transformation of Austin and the loss of the city’s identity. “The city used to have some cool. Now, it’s just popular.”

Akashic Books newest Noir title is AUSTIN NOIR to be published in May 2023.
AUSTIN NOIR is edited by Hopeton Hay, Scott Montgomery & Molly Odintz.
It is one title in over 100 Noir anthology titles published by Akashic Books.
One can experience the best of Noir writing in Columbus, Ohio, Manhattan, Nairobi, Prague,
Singapore and Staten Island - to name just a few of the eclectic locations featured in this series.
I am quite addicted and thank Akashic Books for the many ARCs I have received.

I like that every title has a familiar format.
There is a list of published (and forthcoming) titles in the series.
There is a map with several areas highlighted (by body silhouettes) which point out where the stories take place. In AUSTIN NOIR, we find ourselves in the Lady Bird Lake area, West
Campus, Red River Street & Hotel Van Zandt - to name a few.
There is a Table of Contents with titles, authors and locations listed.
There is an Introduction written by the editor(s) which sets the tone & foundation for the stories
and location.
There are the stories, usually divided into III parts.
There is an ‘About the Contributors’ section. (I find this section very interesting as I can read a short bio of the authors. This section often refers to additional works by the authors.)

The stories in AUSTIN NOIR are as follows:
*Part I - Crossfire
The pink monkey by Gabino Iglesias
Stunts by Ace Atkins
Reflections by Amanda Moore
The Good Neighbor by Jeff Abbott
A Thousand Bats on an Austin Night by Scott Montgomery
*Part II - Nothing I can do about it now
Rush Hour by Richard Z. Santos
Sapphire Blue by Alexandra Burt
Charles Bronson by Lee Thomas
Saving by Miriam Kuznets
A Time and Place by Jacob Grovey
*Part III
The Foundation by Chaitali Sen
Michael’s Perfect Penis by Molly Odintz
Stitches by Amy Gentry
Bangface vs. Cleaning Solutions, LLC by Andrew Hilbert
These are well-crafted stories and are excellent examples of the Noir genre.
For me - the stories all have an element of great sadness in them - poor choices, few
choices, selfishness, ignorance, bleak, sleazy settings.
Noir is a genre of crime fiction characterized by cynicism, fatalism and moral ambiguity.
Dark, brooding, raw, pessimistic. Noir as been described as “whiskey neat”.
AUSTIN NOIR ****