New Orleans Noir

New Orleans Noir is a vivid series of impressions of the city in moments that brought out either the best or worst in people. As part of the first wave of fiction to arrive in the wake of the storm, it's a thrilling read and a harbinger of what should be an interesting stream of works.-- "Gambit Weekly"
Don't expect the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce to put its seal of approval on New Orleans Noir, because these eighteen stories describe a city where serial killers and philosophers live side by side . . . Yet when you've waded through these anguished pages, you can begin to understand why--as corrupt as it is, as broken as it is--so many of New Orleans's refugees still long to go home.-- "Mystery Scene"
The excellent twelfth entry in Akashic's city-specific noir series illustrates the diversity of the chosen locale . . . Appropriately, Smith divides the book into pre- and post- Katrina sections, and many of the more powerful tales describe the disaster's hellish aftermath.-- "Publishers Weekly"
Alongside San Francisco and Las Vegas, few American cities are simultaneously beloved and loathed by so many, which makes New Orleans a particularly promising and logical addition to Akashic's noir series . . . this is a strong and extremely entertaining collection that leaves you satisfied in a straight-up-Jameson, unfiltered-cigarette, pretty-gal-on-the-arm kind of way.-- "L. Magazine"
New Orleans Noir digs below the surface and into the social fabric of a city that had its troubles long before Hurricane Katrina . . . Despite the fact that this collection is gritty, often bloody and frequently depressing, it's a fascinating portrayal of a city that has always had social troubles ignored by the rest of the country. In that it is a call to action.-- "Feminist Review"