NO FANTASY ISLAND: HONOLULU NOIR EDITED BY CHRIS MCKINNEY

With Honolulu Noir, the latest in the Akashic Noir series, editor Chris McKinney proves that city even if on the surface doesn't seem the right match for dark stories, it is actually perfect. The history and current issues of race, class, and colonialism provide many of the themes for noir. The exotic locale provides a texture and style that allows it to cover much of the genres territory and bleed into others.

Family and the ethnic background of those families, runs though a majority of these tales. The first one to kick it off, Stephanie Han's "The Swimmers", shows how a man's need for revenge on his ex endangers their son. A vet goes to extremes to protect his son from ISIS recruitment in Kiana Davenport's "Hairstyles Of The Jihad". A family reunion on the island reveals the cracks and fissures over "Diamond Dreams" written by Mindy Eun Soo Pennybacker.

McKinney gives two authors the opportunity to use their series characters. I was happy to see Lano Waiwai'ole 's Pacific-American gambler, Wiley. In "Melani's Mana", he travels to the city for a private poker game where a robbery raises the stakes. This was the first time I encountered Scott Kikkawa's post World War Two cop, Francis "Sheik" Yoshikawa in "Midori". The hardboiled style and world building through time and place made me want to get the books in the series.

The two other policers look at both past and future, in "Apanna's Last Case" Alan Bernnert follows the real life police investigator who Earl Biggers based Charlie Chan on. Brennert humanizes the character while dsplaying his amazing deductive skills. Tom Gammarino gives us a future in "It Entered My Mind" where an investigation where OS, AI, and humanity blur so does morality.

The last section , titled Modern Mana, allows Hawaiian culture to take noir into the realms of supernatural and horror. "Mother's Mother's Mother" by Morgan Miryubg McKinney tells another family story with the interesting use of a plant. B.A. Koboyashi uses vampires to view the remnants of colonialism in the atmospheric "Shadow and Haoles". Michelle Cruz Skinner's protagonists becomes a part of the flow of Honolul''s past, present, and future in "The Unknown" that works as a meditative capper to the collection.

The three other stories or all unique. The editor, himself, looks at race and class through the lense of the gangster story with "The Gaijin".Don Wallace uses a coming of age (if they survive) of two teen boys on "That Night At Carnival". Christy Passion utilizes her background as a critical care nurse in her gritty story "Mercy". These stories and the rest deliver great takes on the genre with one of the most insightful overviews of the area in all of the Akashik series.