Montreal Noir

September 15, 2017
"Montreal has always been a popular destination for Americans," write McFetridge and Filippi, "though it's definitely nothing like America." These 15 new stories celebrate the differences between us and our northern neighbor.As in any good noir, poverty, drugs, and despair cloud many of the characters' lives. But even the stories about druggies have a certain je ne sais quoi. In Samuel Archibald's "Three Tshakapesh Dreams," the undercover cop trying to solve a heroin addict's murder struggles with nighttime visions fueled by his grandfather's battles with a black bear. And the homeless men in Michel Basilieres's "The Haunted Crack House" were once artists. Murderers also have their own cachet. Max, the hero of Howard Shrier's "Milk Teeth," searches for a young girl's killer among the champions of professional wrestling. Danger lurks among aspiring writers in Johanne Seymour's spooky "Journal of an Obsession." And a celebrity harbors a secret in Genevieve Lefebvre's "Such a Pretty Little Girl." Homage is also paid to the old ways. Patrick Senecal's "Rush Hour" features one of the last traffic reporters to assess the streets by car. And Hope Sze, the modern heroine of Melissa Yi's "The Sin Eaters," finds solace in a venerable Yiddish proverb. Even the stock characters of noirdom--mobsters and hit men--offer novel takes on crime in Peter Kirby's "The Crap Magnet" and Robert Pobi's "Poppa." Whether it's the quirkiness of the characters, the ingenuity of the puzzles, or the big hearts inside some of the darkest villains, noir's different north of the border. Here's hoping readers will say "Vive la difference."

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September 25, 2017
The 15 entries in this Akashic noir anthology, a mixed bag of memorable tales and filler material, reveal the dark side of Montreal, one of the oldest cities in North America. The better stories tend to be translated from French, such as Geneviève Lefebvre’s unnerving “Such a Pretty Girl,” which delves into the disturbed world of child actors, and Johanne Seymour’s “Journal of an Obsession,” which explores the fragmenting mind of a writer bent on salvaging his ego (“I’ve always lived in a void: a black hole, an empty glass, a vacant heart, a blank page”). A highlight among the selections written originally in English is Arjun Basu’s “Wild Horses,” about a shoe store manager who sees horses galloping down his street one night and desperately seeks other people who have witnessed this same odd phenomenon. American crime fiction fans will welcome the opportunity to sample the short fiction of some worthy Canadian authors.