A review by oldmansimms
Denver Noir by Francelia Belton, R. Alan Brooks, Amy Drayer, Twanna LaTrice Hill, Mark Stevens, Erika T. Wurth, Mario Acevedo, Mathangi Subramanian, Barbara Nickless, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Manuel Ramos, Cynthia Swanson, D.L. Cordero, Peter Heller

3.0

Having moved to the Denver area a few years ago, this seemed like an ideal place to crack into the ever-growing "_____ Noir" library put out by Akashic Books. Certainly I would expect most people picking up one of those books will be from the area the book is themed around (there's more than 100 of them now, it would be very hard to pick one to start with otherwise), and the "local color" is part of the charm. Or, I might say, most of the charm. Looking beyond the local history and voices represented in the stories (which are wide-ranging, and sure to meet most Denverites' fancies), on a plot level most of these stories are just okay. That's not really the authors' fault - mystery, especially noir, is a very difficult genre to do in short form -- but it's a little disappointing nonetheless.