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For many people, Cape Cod brings to mind beaches, summers, the Kennedy clan and their peers, and fond memories built up over years of traditional family vacations. As anyone who has ever grown up or spent winters in a summer tourist area knows, there is a dark side to all that bliss. CAPE COD NOIR comprises thirteen stores about the dank, dark underside that tourists rarely, if ever, see. The collection is divided into three sections. The first, OUT OF SEASON, includes Ten-Year Plan by William Hastings, which gives a behind-the-scenes look at a busy restaurant, provided by an ex-con who is an outsider in more ways than the obvious. This is followed by Second Chance by Elyssa East which provides a look to an unusual reform school with unusual precepts. Then there's Ardent by Dana Cameron, a look at the role of women, and how a woman of intelligence can change her life if given the chance. And finally we have Nineteen Snapshots of Dennisport by Paul Tremblay a demonstration that not all family albums capture good times. Section II, SUMMER SEASON, has more to say about what goes on in tourist time. Variations on a Fifty-Pound Bale by Adam Mansbach brings life, however improbably, to an urban legend. Bad Night at Hyannisport by Seth Greenland takes readers into the world of the summer people, although in this case it's the world of a young summer construction worker, and he's been drinking a lot. Spectacle Pond by Lizzie Skurnick is a story of betrayal and mourning and La Jetée by David L. Ulin is a story of déjà vu, one that does not end well at all. Finally a story of summer love, The Occidental Tourist by Kaylie Jones, a love that recurs for a while and then becomes memory. In the third section, END OF THE LINE, The Exchange Student by Fred G. Leebron is told by a young man from Denmark; his experience as an exchange student is certainly not what he expected when he signed up. Viva Regina by Ben Greenman plays out line by usually short line, tension building slowly and then fading. When Death Shines Bright by Dave Zeltserman is ironic, yet comforting in that irony. The collection concludes with Jedediah Berry's experimental Twenty-Eight Scenes for Neglected Guests. This takes place in and around a summer theater; the play in the story and the plot of the story are almost hallucinatorily intertwined. Previous entries in the Noir anthology series have been, at least in my limited experience, good reads. Taken individually, the stories in CAPE COD NOIR are well written, good reading. Taken as a whole, I found it difficult to believe that the stories defined Cape Cod. They did not make me feel I had experienced the Cape in a way that was markedly different from my experience as a townie in another summer resort community. I've never been to Cape Cod; perhaps if I had I would feel otherwise. § P.J. Coldren lives in northern lower Michigan where she reads and reviews widely across the mystery genre when she isn't working in her local hospital pharmacy.
Reviewed by P.J. Coldren, July 2011
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