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: Oto Oltvanji, Misha Glenny, Kati Hiekkapelto, Vesna Goldsworthy, Mirjana Đurđević, Vladan Matijević, Muharem Bazdulj, Vladimir Arsenijević, Dejan Stojiljković, Miljenko Jergović, Aleksandar Gatalica, Vule Žurić, Verica Vincent Cole, and Goran Skrobonja.

From the introduction by Milorad Ivanović:

It was summer 1997, two years after the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, and two years before the war in Kosovo and NATO's bombardment of Belgrade. Serbia was under sanctions and life was difficult. I had been working as a journalist for two short months when my editor sent me to cover the suicide of a famous Serbian painter. The crime scene was terrifying--in front of the elevator lay the body of the artist covered in blood. In one hand, he held a plastic bag containing the bread and milk he had purchased just a few minutes before in a nearby supermarket, and in the other he gripped a pistol that was still pressed against his forehead. Neighbors told us that just a few moments before he had sat in a kafana, drinking šljivovica. As I continued documenting the scene, a brand-new red Mazda pulled up and parked in front of the building. Two neat, clean-shaven, dangerous-looking men in very expensive suits exited the car, approached the policemen conducting the investigation, and showed their Serbian secret service IDs.

“Keep doing your job, we're here on other business,” they said. The police officers stepped aside, allowing the men to enter the building. A few minutes later the agents reemerged accompanied by one of, at the time, the biggest stars of turbo-folk music. Dressed in a luxurious coat, and caked in makeup, her high heels elegantly stepped through the blood pooled in front of the elevator. She paid no attention to the macabre scene accented by the fresh dead body lying in front of her as she entered the red Mazda.

If you read the previous paragraphs, and you fully comprehended them--recognized turbo-folk, reminisced about your favorite kafana, recalled the sort of sanctions Serbia lived under, and remembered why one European capital was bombed in 1999--then you will find it easy to understand the fourteen short noir stories in this anthology. If you did not, this will be a great opportunity to learn about and understand the city that Momo Kapor, one of the most famous Serbian authors, described as “a low-budget New York.”

Vesna Goldsworthy

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