Singapore Noir (Akashic Noir)

A lawyer gets mixed up with a strange client and his jewelry-loving companion. Adultery breeds danger when a powerful man is wronged by his wife’s infidelity. An old man and the gun left behind in his cab have a date with destiny. A young fisherman has bad intentions when he courts two young ladies. A woman claims she’s been cursed. A young man deals with monsters to get back what’s his.

Singapore Noir is the latest in Akashic’s long-running and globetrotting Noir series, giving plenty of new and unfamiliar voices a chance to shine. I’m glad to see the editors taking chances and expanding their horizons a bit, as Singapore Noir goes further afield content-wise than any Akashic Noir collection to date, abandoning the all-noir all-crime all-the-time mentality for a variety of different short stories, including ones involving feng shui and actual magic. (Not to mention brutality. “Current Escape” might be the most unpleasant story I’ve read in any of the Akashic Noir books.)

I can’t wait to see where Akashic takes its Noir series next. While not all of the stories in Singapore Noir struck a chord with me, the ones that did had a unique and unexpected flavor.