Crime, Noir, and Murder: Brown Paper Publishing Anthology Review

Pablo D'Stair, editor over at Brown Paper Publishing, sent me a free copy of  "You're dead, and I killed you: a conversational anthology of noir, crime, and murder" a few weeks ago. In return, I agreed to read and provide a review. It was a win/win, as I have been on a vision quest to school myself on these subjects. I'll  be sending this to Pablo, who I must say, is a true gentleman, but figured I would share it here as well.  You can download a free PDF of this book from the BPP site, if want, or buy the paperback for $5.00

The book is 151 pages, with the first 25 being a round table discussion of murder, human nature, and noir by Pablo D'Stair, Robert Johnson, and Sonia Tabriz. I'm the impatient type and knowing that the remainder of the book was the stories, the intellectual vibe of the discussion lost my interest fairly quickly. I decided to revisit it later and get to down to business. There are eight stories and each one is introduced by one of the authors, who did not write the story being presented. It is a nice touch, the commentary is interesting, and well done. Get to it, you say? Then, here we go.

Jason Michel starts things off with two stories that immediately got me right into things. "Kerbs" is quick hit that had me thinking one thing, then, wham, in one short sentence the twist snared me. I was hanging upside down right to the end. "Celebrity Death Camp and Other TV Hits" is a nice piece of dark satire, that if you despise reality TV as much as I do, will have you cheering in your seat and wishing it were a true story.

David Grant's "REBORN: A Suicide Note" is a perfect mix of clever humor and darkness, just the way I like it and had a really good, unique twist that although I figured was coming, caught me by surprise.

Stephen Honeycutt was up next with "A Moment". A longer story than the previous ones, but one where the book really started to rope me in. From the first salacious couple sentences, I was all in right until the end. This serial killer for higher tale is one hell of a tawdry, dark story.

Still reeling from the previous story, I continued on with Gregory Frye's "The Seven Demons of Randal Murray", which I would have to choose as the best of the lot. This one is very dark and has a supernatural element to it, which when combined with the excellent dialogue and tremendous imagery freaked me out and I'm still thinking about it.

Darcia Helle's Wilted Brown Eyes" is a nice piece of flash that delivers with a moving scene about a murder, or was it?

For fans of straight up, hardboiled noir, Corey Mesler's "The Book Game" will leave you more than satisfied. Very impressive to me was the lead character is not a detective, but an antique book seller. All the expected ingredients are there, plus lots of clever lines and a nice twist.

Nik Korpon's "Amber Flowers" delivers a nice creepy tale that had me thinking it would make a great episode of Tales from the Darkside. Excellent character development, steady build up of suspense, and a rewarding, shocking ending left me more than satisfied.

Last in the batting order was Chris Deal's "A Murder Ballad" and it took me to Mexico with a poignant yet powerful murder mystery. This was more of a slow burn than a quick punch in the face, and written with a style smooth as silk. It made me care about the characters, conjured up some emotions, but still delivered a powerful, almost heart wrenching finale.

I have read a lot of crime shorts and flash this year and I highly recommend this complilation for the stories, the way they are presented, and the diversity of them.