"One Serving of Bad Luck" by Sean Chercover

From: Killer Year ed. Lee Child. St. Martin's, 2008.

Ray Dudgeon, the P.I. from Chercover's debut novel, Big City, Bad Blood, is hired by the lawyer for Sarah Shipman, who lost her legs in a car accident shortly after having her tires rotated at an auto repair chain. With the chain offering to settle for $600,000, Sarah's lawyer wants to pad that figure, but he needs a statement from George Garcia, the man who worked on Sarah's car, a man who's conveniently disappeared.

In his introduction to the story, Ken Bruen praises Ray Dudgeon's humanity. I was most impressed with Chercover's handling of the secondary characters. Instead of feeling forced to establish Dudgeon's voice, Chercover allowed the other characters' voices to come through. As Dudgeon felt for them, so did I.

"Tourist Trade" by James O. Born

From: Dublin Noir ed. Ken Bruen. Akashic Books, 2006.

Born's contribution to this memorable anthology follows a serial-killing Irishman with an otherwise idyllic life and a surprising, darkly comic motivation.

"Tainted Goods" by Charlie Stella

From: Dublin Noir ed. Ken Bruen. Akashic Books, 2006.

Full of beer, liquor, and himself Jack Dugan talks too much to twin thugs sitting in a New York pub. Not only does he hire the twins to do a little muscle work on his behalf, he also tells them about two women and the bar with whom they can have their way.

Six days later, Jack wakes up in Dublin to find the twins brutally killed and himself tied to a chair, awaiting the wrath of the pub's bouncer, cousin to one of women he went on about.

Stella has an economic prose style and a great feel for dialog. We know Jack's talk is bound to catch up to him. The interest is in when and how.

"Stones" by Ken Bruen

From: Hard Boiled Brooklyn ed. Reed Farrel Coleman, Bleak House Books, 2006.

Out for a drive, Brooklyn thieves Charlie and John spot a black man beating up a white woman. Against John's advice, Charlie comes to the woman's aid, taking a tire iron to her assailant. Charlie and the woman, Rose, quickly bond and she turns him on to the idea of robbing her attacker, a drug dealer named Kareem. Charlie brings the plan to John, who again warns him about Rose, but Charlie thinks he's man enough to have it all.

Bruen's brand of punctuation and dialog tags take some getting used to, but the benefits are almost-immediate identification with Charlie and, on the whole, a very readable yarn.

"The Man for the Job" by Gary Phillips

From: Dublin Noir, ed. Ken Bruen, Akashic, 2006

Gary Phillips's entry in this Irish-themed anthology follows Zelmont, onetime Atlanta Falcon washed out of the NFL by drug problems. Now playing American football in Europe, he meets Maura, a willing, well-endowed fan of his career.

Taking Maura back to his hotel room, Zelmont starts to crave crack. Maura sends him to a slum for a fix, and violence ensues.

Phillips does a great job characterizing Zelmont's perception of himself and others. Both are obviously distorted by drugs and fame, yet they seem perfectly natural to Zelmont and believable in his voice. In true noir fashion, even after crashing through this story, he retains the delusion he can pick up the pieces.

Words are Cheap - Ken Bruen

I like Bruen as a novelist, but when I started reading this story, I thought this was going to be one of those rare rough patches for him - a story I didn't like. It didn't take him much more than a page to win me over, however. It is hard to say too much about the story without giving away much, it is quite brief and spare. I'll try.

It concerns a man who wants to get an education in order to impress a girl. Being more street thug than intellect, he goes about getting this education in an odd manner and harm comes to people in tweed. And to the thug. And to the girl.

In any event, what made the story enjoyable for me was recognizing it as a very dark brand of black humor. This, from a master of black humor.

The story is another that the people at Murdaland can be proud of.