Sacramento Killers, Thieves and Other Noir

Bruce Von Stiers

Akashic Books has this fantastic series of noir short stories. Each book in this series takes place in a specific place, whether it be Brooklyn, Kansas City, Denver or even Beirut. Books in this series carve out a geographic area of a city or area to concentrate on with a particular story. And each book has around a dozen noir stories from various authors.

Sacramento Noir is one of the latest books in the series. All of the stories take place in or around Sacramento, California. This volume of stories was edited by John Freeman. An executive editor at Alfred A.Knopf, Freeman is an essayist, poet and the author of the bestseller Dictionary of the Undoing. And he also provides a story for this book.

The book is broken into three sections: Family Business, Collisions and A Tale of Two Cities. There is also an introduction from Freeman, and, at the end, there are short biographies of the authors of the stories in the book.

In the first section, Family Business, the story Take As Needed features the Sierra Oaks area of Sacramento. Abigail is a college dropout who goes to stay with her grandmother. There is another young woman there, helping the grandmother. This woman may be related to Abigail, but there's something else going on. Throw in a guy from Abigail's recent past and an absentee father, and you've got a very interesting tale. The story is from Shelley Blanton-Stroud, who writes the Jane Benjamin historical mystery series.

The next story is Sakura City. In the mid 1950's there is a redevelopment movement going on. A city-wide vote would effectively remove a so-called slum area. One businessman is trying to buy up properties on the cheap to re-sell to the city for a huger profit. One family and their business is in his way. This leads to a precarious situation for the family. It is an interesting story with a true to genre noir twist. The story was written by Naomi J. Williams, the author of the historical novel, Landfalls.

Maceo Montoya is a visual artist and author. His story for this collection is A Significant Action. It revolves around visual artists working on a mural, wannabe artists and police trying to infiltrate supposed Latino gangs who are intertwined with the artists. Jealousies, paranoia and the need to be accepted are key elements in this story. It is a strong story of betrayal and retribution.

In the story, The Former Detective, an illegal Afghan refugee comes across a dead boy. The rest of the story is about the missing boy, the Afghan, Zakariya, and situations both past and present. It is a story that asks the question; do you remain silent about what you know or cause immense danger for yourself and others around you. The story is by Jan Kochai, who won a national award for his debut novel, 99 Nights In Logar.

The Sacrament is a tale of two brothers, one an artist and the other a priest. A deep secret from their past, a woman of the night and a commissioned sculpture of Mary Magdelene are key elements of the story. It is a great noir tale with more than a touch of depravity. Reyna Grande, who penned the bestselling memoir, The Distance Between Us.

Ghost Boy is a taut tale of drug use, trying to escape your surroundings and a haunting that may be a hallucination or something all too real. It was written by Jen Soong, whose work has been published in the Washington Post and Black Warrior Review.

Downriver, November 1949 is a noir tale that could have been written during the timeframe of the title. There is a card dealer at a club who's cheating the house. There is someone who realizes what's happening and deals himself in for a cut. And there are several other things mixed in to make this a great story of how even the slickest of penny ante crooks can get taken. Joe Vadi, whose work has been published in both the Yale Review and the Paris Review, wrote this story.

Robin tries to do the right thing and return a key she found in a purse she bought at a thrift store. But the owner of the purse is a cat lady who's about to get evicted from her home. The more Robin tries to help the more onerous the situation becomes. The cats, the cat lady, the key and Robin's resolve to do the right thing are the core elements of this interesting story, titled The Key In The Tignanello Bag. It was written by Janet Rodriguez. Her work has been published in Hobart, Pangrus and the publication, Rumpus, where she is currently the interviews editor.

Ramy and Danny are ambulance drivers. They see a lot of the messier, seamier side of the city when dispatched on a call. But the story is really about Ramy and how he came to be an ambulance driver in Sacramento as he had been one in the middle east. A forbidden romance and retribution are at the heart of this story, which is titled Intersections. The editor for this collection, John Freeman, wrote this story. A published poet, Freeman, also penned the bestseller, Dictionary of the Undoing.

One Thing About Blue is about a young woman name Georgia and her best friend Blue. It seems that Blue always has a scheme going on. But one went awry and Georgia did time for it. A way down the road the two reconnected. Blue had a thing going on that seemed legit. But was it really? And could Blue really be trusted? She always seemed to skate away with nothing bad ever clinging to her. I figured out the scenario before it was revealed. But I've known a couple of real-life schemers like Blue, so I'm a bit jaded in that way. Maureen O'Leary wrote the story, which is probably the one I liked the best in this collection. An accomplished poet and writer, her works have been published in Nightmare Magazine and Bourbon Penn.

A Reflection of the Public deals with people who live in a tent city. You know, homeless people. It is a bit of a noir tale, but to me it's a discerning story of lives that took too many wrong turns. Social injustice, mental deficiency and outright criminality permeate throughout the story. A former war correspondent and novelist, William T. Vollman, wrote this story.

Luis Avalos is a fiction writer and grad student at UC Davis. His story for this collection is A Textbook Example. It is an interesting story with random acts of violence seeming to create havoc with a man's mental health. Is he the perpetrator of these crimes? Or is he a bystander, who feels empathy for the victim and abhorrence for the crime?

The final story in the collection is Painted Ladies. Good Hispanic kids being co-opted by their kind of sleazy cousins, a young boy who is out of place with the rest of the kids and strains between adults in a migrant worker family are elements of the story. A tragedy unfolds that could change everything in life for the story's narrator. Even though it differs in ethnicity from my own upbringing, I can definitely relate to some of the things that are portrayed in the story. Nora Rodriquez Camagna, herself the child of migrant workers, wrote the story.

One thing that I can definitely say about the Akashic Books Noir series. It never disappoints. The collection, Sacramento Noir, has a lot of great noir styled stories. And reading about characters like Blue and the family dynamic in the last story brought back a flood of my own memories, both good and bad.

Sacramento Noir was just released this past week. You will find it through major book retailers.

You can find out more about Sacramento Noir and other titles in the Noir series on the Akashic Books website. That site is https://www.akashicbooks.com/

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© 2025 Bruce E Von Stiers