Amsterdam Noir (Akashic Noir)

Amsterdam is a very welcome, if long overdue, installment in the Akashic Noir Series.

—Walter van den Berg’s Get Rich Quick was named the recipient of the inaugural Literatuurprijs Nieuw-West award.

“An appealing compendium, with welcome doses of local color and atmosphere.” —New York Journal of Books

“Fourteen of The Netherlands’ premier authors of crime and literary fiction contributed to this collection, with the editors—top-rated crime authors themselves—providing the 15th. Amsterdam Noir is the latest in Akashic Books’ long-running series of place-based crime anthologies. If this enterprise is in part intended to give a flavour of the locale under the authorial microscope, this collection is another success.” —Crime Fiction Lover

Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.

Brand-new stories by: Michael Berg, Anneloes Timmerije, Murat Isik, René Appel & Josh Pachter, Simon de Waal, Hanna Bervoets, Karin Amatmoekrim, Christine Otten, Mensje van Keulen, Max van Olden, Theo Capel, Loes den Hollander, Herman Koch, Abdelkader Benali, and Walter van den Berg.

From the introduction by René Appel & Josh Pachter:

Amsterdam has the amenities and, to a certain extent, the feel of a major world city, but one of its most attractive features is its relatively small size. It’s easy to navigate on feet, by bike, and via its excellent public transportation network, especially with the semicircular perimeter of its famous Grachtengordel, or ring of concentric canals.

Like any other metropolis, though, Amsterdam also has its dark side, its shadowy corners—in other words, there is also an Amsterdam noir. No matter how beautiful, vital, and cheery a city might be, pure human emotions such as greed, jealousy, and the thirst for revenge will rear their ugly heads . . . with all their negative consequences. Amsterdam is a multidimensional city, populated by a wide assortment of social groups, and not all of those groups agree on what constitutes normal social values and mores. This results in a lively mix . . . and, as you will see, in problems.

JOSH PACHTER is an American writer, editor, and translator. His short crime stories have been featured in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, among other places, and his translations of crime fiction by Dutch and Belgian authors appear regularly in EQMM. He lives in Northern Virginia. Pachter is the coeditor of Amsterdam Noir.

RENÉ APPEL published his first thriller, Handicap, in 1987, and has written twenty more, two of which have received the Golden Noose, the annual award for the best Dutch-language crime novel. English translations of his stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and several anthologies. He is the coeditor of Amsterdam Noir.