There's a low burn violence to many of these realist stories set in Buenos Aires. Ariel Magnus's "Ex Officio" was memorable to me for the scene of a cop watching a mugging unfold from a distance, unmoved or unperturbed by the sight--doing nothing to help. In another story, Veronica Abdala's "Orange Is a Pretty Color," a woman watches, sociopathically unmoved, while her lover dies of a heart attack. The trope of people watching pain and misery unfold in front of them, impassively, was a recurring one. Be careful in Buenos Aires?

Noir isn't a dark enough color for some of these stories, all well-worth the time. Some translations are stronger than than others, some stories explore deeper themes than crime and personal revenge and others don't, but overall it's a great collection. I'd also like to shout-out that women, not always considered full members of the noir authors' club, are well-represented here and produce some of the most bone-chilling work. I look forward to checking out more of this series from my favorite cities around the world. ( )

Buenos Aires Noir is a new release in the peripatetic Akashic Noir Series that travels the globe, inviting us to spend several hours among the grim and gritty noir landscapes of the cities it visits. With local writers as editors, our “tour guides” are well-informed and have the hometown knowledge to select the best local talent. With fourteen stories, there is a wide variety of short stories for readers to enjoy.

Given Argentina’s violent and grim history with the Peronistas, the Junta, the Dirty War, it is no surprise that this is one of the grimmest anthologies in the series. This is the noir of noir. There is nothing cozy about it. Fury of the Worm by Alejandro Parisi was so disturbing and violent I had to put the book down for a few days.

The Golden Eleventh by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara is a breathless, headlong, poetic race of words that capture the desperate indecision of a man in the midst of committing an atrocity. It is perhaps my favorite story in the anthology even though we are in the mind of a white supremacist terrorist. I loved the slow dawning horror of Crochet by Inés Fernández Moreno. Some of the stories are small, private dramas while others touch on the pain of the Dirty War. Oddly, since I think Mallo did such a great job selecting stories for the anthology, I thought his Eternal Love was the weakest of the collection, more a long joke with a final punchline.

I enjoyed Buenos Aires Noir. That is no surprise, it is one of my favorite publishing series and it seldom disappoints me. If you like armchair travel and mysteries, it combines the best of both. Of course, it’s most traveling the grimmer side of the cities it visits, but it visits most of the neighborhoods, poor, wealthy, traditional, and modern. You see more of a city in these books than you will in Fodor’s.

I received an e-galley of Buenos Aires Noir from Akashic Books through Edelweiss.

Buenos Aires Noir at Akashic Noir
Akashic Noir Series
Ernesto Mallo author site (Spanish language)
Ernesto Mallo on GoodReads

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/11/29/9781617755224/ ( )

Again and again the Akashic Noir series impresses. This is my fifth selection from the series and every story is solid as usual. I hope Vermont makes the list sometime soon! Or maybe I don't since the stories are pretty dark...I guess it would be mixed blessings...

Anyway, regardless of which Akashic Noir book you get, chances are it'll be well-worth the read. If it's a place you're familiar with, it just makes it that much better. ( )

Buenos Aires Noir, the latest addition to the Akashic noir series, offers good solid stories, exactly what I've come to expect from these international anthologies. My favorite story in this collection is "A Face in the Crowd" by Pablo De Santis, because it gave me the most pause for thought, but the editor has chosen his stories wisely. They do not disappoint. I am always excited when one of these books comes my way because I know I am in for a treat. ( )