Honolulu Noir

by Chris McKinney (Editor)

Overview

The Aloha State enters the Akashic Noir Series arena with a riveting collection, exploring shadows and corners of Honolulu that will never be found in a tourist brochure

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: Alan Brennert, Kiana Davenport, Tom Gammarino, Stephanie Han, Scott Kikkawa, B.A. Kobayashi, Chris McKinney, Morgan Miryung McKinney, Christy Passion, Mindy Eun Soo Pennybacker, Michelle Cruz Skinner, Lono Waiwai‘ole, and Don Wallace.

From the introduction by Chris McKinney:

“When one thinks of Honolulu, I’m sure ‘noir’ is not the first word to pop into one’s mind. Instead, one thinks surfing and hula—white sandy beaches and crystal-blue waters . . . Yet we do have our problems. To this day, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders are disproportionately incarcerated and victims of poverty in a place where the average cost of a single-family home has skyrocketed to a million dollars. It’s not uncommon for four generations of a family to live in the same house. Drugs, homelessness, child abuse, and sex trafficking are pervasive . . .

I was excited to be tasked with editing this anthology because the setting of Honolulu for the purposes of noir is and always has been full of possibility. Wherever crime, poverty, and corruption exist, noir is easy, and despite its glossy reputation, Honolulu has all these things. On top of that, I’m betting this will be one of the most diverse anthologies in Akashic Books’s impressively popular and abundant collection . . . We all mostly get along in this city in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about 2,500 miles from the closest continent. And when we don’t? Well, you can read all about it here in Honolulu Noir.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636141985
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	11/05/2024
Series:	Akashic Noir Series
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

CHRIS McKINNEY is a Korean, Japanese, Scottish American writer born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the author of the Water City Trilogy. Book one was named a Best Mystery of 2021 by Publishers Weekly and a Best Speculative Mystery of 2021 by CrimeReads. He has published six other novels: The Tattoo, The Queen of Tears, Bolohead Row, Mililani Lauka, Boi No Good, and Yakudoshi: Age of Calamity. In 2024, Honolulu Magazine named McKinney "Author of the Year" for his Water City Trilogy. McKinney currently resides in Honolulu with his wife and two daughters.

Editorial Reviews

"This crime anthology offers a kaleidoscopic perspective on Hawaii’s capital city, with 13 stories that range from riffs on Agatha Christie to an investigation involving the real police officer who inspired Earl Derr Biggers’s Charlie Chan."— New York Times

"Akashic’s Noir series rolls merrily along, across the Pacific to this island state so often called paradise. But, okay, ‘merrily’ isn’t the right word given that the underbelly of Hawaii’s capital city is very dark indeed. The residents we meet here are a mixture of the bad, the evil, and the deeply unfortunate. The stories, by authors such as Stephanie Han, Lono Waiwai'ole, Don Wallace, Kiana Davenport, Scott Kikkawa, Mindy Eun Soo Pennybacker, and editor Chris McKinney, range from mystery to thriller to horror, with characters on the right side of the law, the wrong side, and straddling that thin line in between. The writing styles vary, but they have one thing in common: high quality. These are some seriously fine stories—outstanding writing, after all, is the hallmark of Akashic’s long-running, world-circling Noir series, now weighing in at 122 titles—and readers may well find themselves spending a lot of time in this fictional Honolulu, savoring the atmosphere and flavor of each tale before moving on to the next. A splendid anthology."— Booklist

"It’s 13 cases of trouble in paradise for the characters in Akashic’s solid latest regional crime anthology, which shrewdly exposes the underbelly of Hawaii’s capital city . . . Taken together, these stories successfully probe beneath the surface of a locale best known for its ‘white sandy beaches and crystal-blue waters.’ It’s a smart balance of thrills and cultural insight."— Publishers Weekly

"In his introduction, McKinney aptly notes the diversity of the characters that inhabit these stories, and indeed they present Honolulu less as an idyllic vacation destination than as a multicultural crossroads that attracts Native Hawaiians, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, vampires, night watchers, and haoles like the tourist target audience."— Kirkus Reviews

"Honolulu Noir demonstrates that darkness can luxuriate even in sun-kissed climes . . . [Those] who enjoy cross-cultural context mixed in with the shadows will find much to appreciate in Honolulu Noir . . . it’s certainly one of the most diverse anthologies in Akashic’s city noir canon, and one of the most unique."— NY Journal of Books

From the Publisher

2024-08-30
Thirteen tales that will make you think twice about booking your next trip to the Aloha State.

In his introduction, McKinney aptly notes the diversity of the characters that inhabit these stories, and indeed they present Honolulu less as an idyllic vacation destination than as a multicultural crossroads that attracts Native Hawaiians, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, vampires, night watchers, and haoles like the tourist target audience. The stories are almost equally diverse in their temporal settings, which range from “Apana’s Last Case,” Alan Brennert’s early-20th-century mystery for the real-life model of Charlie Chan, to “It Entered My Mind,” in which Tom Gammarino’s future world is both defined and menaced by Synthetic Intellects and the crimes they recount, from murder to suicide, theft, kidnapping, cheating, sex trafficking, and fake murder. Among the highlights are “Melelani’s Mana,” a headlong, dialogue-driven account of a memorable night of Texas Hold ’em by Lono Waiwai‘ole; “Hairstyles of the Jihadi,” Kiana Davenport’s disturbing report on the recruitment of children; and “Mercy,” Christy Passion’s snapshot of an overworked emergency room crew’s struggles to keep a prisoner who’s hanged himself from slipping away. Many of the stories are less interested in crime than in otherworldly threats rooted in Hawaiian culture, and the final three—“The Unknown,” Michelle Cruz Skinner’s glimpse of the world of the shamans called babaylans; “Shadows and Haoles,” B.A. Kobayashi’s encounter with kidnappers who may not be human but are still haoles; and “Mother’s Mother’s Mother,” a nightmarish tale of tissue-paper Venus flytraps coming to horrifying life by 19-year-old Morgan Miryung McKinney—are deeply weird. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Not your mother’s Honolulu, though maybe your great-grandmother’s.

Kirkus Reviews