In milwaukee noir, among the latest titles in Akashic Books’ Noir series, 14 writers who’ve lived here offer a sinister tour of Brew City’s radically diverse neighborhoods. Vida Cross introduces readers to two sisters from Franklin Heights who are the only black members of a Catholic church in “All Dressed in Red,” and Whitefish Bay is the setting of Christi Clancy’s bizarrely mesmerizing condemnation of lawn chemicals. Valerie Laken repeatedly references Mayor Tom Barrett in “Runoff,” in which three teens explore the underground pipes beneath the streets of Downer Woods, leading them to rich white people’s garages and one extremely unsettling discovery. Summerfest, Ogden Avenue’s Abbot Row houses and the Princess Theater on North Third Street also make cameos. Editor Tim Hennessy, who works at Half Price Books in Brookfield, writes in the introduction that Milwaukee is “among the most segregated and impoverished big cities in the country,” and many of these pieces—including those by such renowned writers as Jane Hamilton, James E. Causey and Nick Petrie—work effectively not only as atmospheric fiction but also as influential social commentary.
Hennessy and several milwaukee noir contributors will appear at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 7, at Boswell Book Co., 2559 N. Downer Ave.; and 6 p.m. on Monday, May 13, at the Milwaukee Public Library’s Tippecanoe Branch, 3912 S. Howell Ave.
