Dublin in the Dark

“Reverse-Gentrification of the Literary World” says a note on the Akashic catalogue, and it especially catches the spirit of their city-centered short story collections. I'll be reviewing the latest, LONDON NOIR, in my column. As for Dublin Noir, editor Ken Bruen seems to be one of the few Irish-based writer on hand: his story, “Black Stuff,” has as deep roots in the Dublin soil as his novels . As for the best of the rest – Olen Steinhauer’s “The Piss-Stained Czech;” Sarah Weinman’s “Hen Night;” Gary Phillips’s “The Man for the Job” – they deliberately tell what it’s like to be from outside Dublin, looking in