Just Finished Reading: Paris Noir – Capital Crime Fiction edited by Maxim Jakubowski (FP: 2007) [332pp] 

As a LONG time fan of noir movies, I couldn’t help but pick this one up. That plus I’m a confirmed fan of French classic crime novel and am quite fond of the city in question too! This was a collection of 18 short stories all based in and around the city of Paris. Being noir (dark!) and modern they contained a wide range of crimes, drugs, some (not too explicit) sex and a scattering of swear words (again nothing particularly outstanding). The general tone was oppressive, hopeless, dark – as you might expect.  

We have racist cops beating up immigrants in ‘Bar Fight’ by Jason Starr, teenage drug gangs fighting over turf in ‘The Lookout’ by Marc Villard, another group of teenage buskers getting in way over their heads in ‘New Shoes’ by John Williams, secrets left over from the Occupation in ‘The Redhead’ by Cara Black and sleazy business deals in ‘Paris Calling’ by Jean-Hugues Oppel. 

By far the strangest story – and I have no idea how (or why) it made it into the collection – was ‘The Flaneur of Les Arcades de I’Opera’ by Michael Moorcock. Although, largely, based in Paris this didn’t really (at all!) fit the noir definition. It was, indeed, far more fantasy with just a hint of science-fiction. Those familiar with Moorcock’s work would have immediately recognised a host a familiar avatar of Elric (complete with possessed sword) and Jerry Cornelius. The plot revolved around a group of Nazi terrorists – the survivors of the failed invasion of Poland – attempting to regain power using supernatural objects taken from various places in the larger Multiverse. So.... a VERY different and unexpected story from the rest of the collection. I couldn’t help but wonder if the editor knows Moorcock or if he was under some kind of contractual obligation to him to explain its insertion. However, apart from being a fun (if rather ODD) story it did prompt me to look at my own Moorcock collection and muse on re-reading some of them. I’d also been thinking recently about getting back into the fantasy genre so this might be an opportunity to do both. We’ll see how it goes! Maybe its the Universe/Multiverse trying to tell me something.... [grin] 

Overall, this was a solid collection of (mostly) crime related stories in a much darker ‘City of Light’. He’s apparently collected a similar set of tales based in London and I’ll be looking out for that. I’m also aware of a whole set of classic and modern tales of crime from cities across the world which could be an easy win for my fictional travel project [muses]. Again, we’ll see. Recommended if you’re looking for a bit of darkness in your life.