Tart Noir: An Anthology (Paperback)

this anthology may have been well written but it is not full of 'female sleuths', many of the stories where women plotting how to kill a lover, (usually another women) when they are finnished having great sex.

the only story i actually liked was liz evan's "pussy galore", i read all four grace smith novels in the following week.

if you are looking for copious amounts of unneeded sex this is the book for you. maybe the writers need to reasses their ideas about tart noir, less tart more noir would be a start.

if you are looking for a good crime fiction read stick to the actual books written by the above writers.

if you are looking for a tough female slueth who has a real story and great sex try jean m. redmann, hard to get hold of copies of these books but well worth the effort.

Mentioning Philip Marlowe and the word 'sleuths' kinda led me to believe that this was a female detective anthology... kinda like the fiction Sparkle Hayter and Lauren Henderson write. Yeah, maybe not... Silly old me.

The emphasis is very much on the 'tart' part of the title in most of the stories here - to the extent that they get a teeny bit repetitive. I'm at a loss to see as to how some of the heroines of these stories are 'saving the world' in stilettoes or otherwise - mostly, they're just criminals, out to get laid.

Not a whole lot of brain work involved. They're mostly committing crime, rather than solving it - not exactly how this anthology is being sold, as far as i can tell. A couple of stories are so downright bizarre - I'm curious as to the appeal of Vicki Hendrick's 'Stormy, Mon Amour', and Jenny Colgan's 'The Wrong Train' was downright silly. Belief was not so much suspended, as completely negated...

A few pieces are entertaining, at least - Jen Banbury's 'Take, for Example, Meatpie' is highly original, while Lisa Jewell's 'Labia Lobelia' is more a helping of fluffy chicklit than crime-fic... complete with revenge courtesy of Bette Davis' ghost. As you do... Stella Duffy's 'Martha Grace' is a sensory feast - probably the best written of the bunch - complete with lavish descriptions of food and sex. Designed to make you crave homemade chocolate tart and teenage boys, apparently... pretty damn effective.

Not a total loss, then - but not really what i paid my money for. A little less sex and chicklit would have done more for this, as it were - you kinda get the impression that getting the man (or woman, in a couple of cases) into bed is all that matters (or murdering them if they're not quite up to scratch). And that just gets boring after a while...