Amsterdam Noir

by René Appel

  “Dangerous,” Tommy echoes. “You better tie your shoelace.”

  Picking carefully though the beer-splattered mess, Vincent sees that most of the bottles have broken. Shit, shit, shit. He gets slowly to his feet. “You stupid bastards,” he says. “You’re gonna have to pay for all this—”

  Roy’s hand whips around behind his back and snakes something out of his rear jeans pocket. There is a metallic snick, and Vincent sees a long blade glitter coldly in the starlight. “Your fuckin’ shoelaces trip you up,” he says slowly, “and you think we’re gonna pay for it?”

  Vincent puts out a hand to keep his old friend at bay, seemingly unaware of the broken bottle he is holding.

  But Roy sees the threat and lunges toward him. Vincent jerks to the side, his hand flashing forward defensively.

  There is a sudden scream, and for just a moment it is unclear which of them has made the sound, but it is both of them who have cried out, both who have been wounded.

  They stand there in the Museumplein beneath the blanket of stars, swaying from side to side, Marco and Tommy looking on in dumbfounded horror.

  A spray of arterial blood gushes from Roy’s throat, and there is hot pain on the side of Vincent’s head.

  Roy drops his switchblade and crumples to his knees, clutching his neck in both hands, before toppling over.

  “Holy shit,” Marco breathes. “Come on, Tommy, let’s get out of here.”

  As if by magic, the two of them disappear, leaving Roy and Vincent behind.

  Vincent gingerly touches the left side of his head, where blood streams from a deep gash left behind by Roy’s knife.

  “You cut me!” he whimpers. “You fucking cut me!”

  He collapses to the pavement and lies there weeping as Roy’s body trembles violently for a long moment and then grows still.

  The two of them remain there, side by side like a pair of lovers, until Vincent hears the wail of approaching sirens through the starry, starry night.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  Karin Amatmoekrim (Paramaribo, 1976) is the author of six novels, including the best seller Het Gym (2011) and De Man van Veel (2013), a historical novel about the life of Resistance hero Anton de Kom. A documentary about her sixth book, Tenzij de Vader (2016), was broadcast on Dutch television in May 2017. She also writes short stories and essays, and is currently working toward a PhD in modern literature.

  René Appel (Hoogkarspel, 1945) published his first thriller, Handicap, in 1987, and has written twenty more, two of which have received the Golden Noose, the annual award for the best Dutch-language crime novel. In 2017, Joyride en Andere Spannende Verhalen, a collection of his short stories, was published, and English translations of his stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and several anthologies.

  Abdelkader Benali (Ighzazene, Morocco, 1975) is a writer, documentary filmmaker, and photographer. He emigrated to The Netherlands from Morocco at the age of four. In 2003, his novel De Langverwachte won the Libris Literature Prize, the most important literary award for Dutch fiction. His work includes novels, plays, poetry, and travel essays, and he has written extensively about Tangier, Henri Matisse, radicalism, and Marcel Proust. Today he lives in Amsterdam and Tangier.

  Michael Berg (Heerlen, 1956) worked for almost twenty-five years for Dutch public radio as a host, director, documentarian, and manager before moving to France and becoming a full-time writer. In 2013, he won the Golden Noose for Nacht in Parijs, and his Het Meisje op de Weg was the highest-ranked Dutch-language entry on Hebban’s list of the best international thrillers of 2016. In 2017, he moved back to The Netherlands.

  Hanna Bervoets (Amsterdam, 1984) is a fiction writer and essayist. She has published six novels and is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the Opzij Literature Prize for Lieve Céline and the BNG Literature Prize for Ivanov. In 2017, she was awarded the Frans Kellendonk Prize for her full body of work. Translation rights for several of her books have been sold in the US and Germany. Her most recent novel, Fuzzie, has received glowing reviews.

  Theo Capel (Amsterdam, 1944) has reviewed crime fiction in addition to writing it himself. After ten novels about Hank Stammer, who runs a collection agency in Amsterdam, Capel (writing as Erik Bolt) began a new series featuring Amsterdam policeman Felix de Grave; to date, there are two books in that series. “The Red Mercedes,” a short story about Stammer, appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in 2004 and was reprinted in Passport to Crime in 2007.

  Maria de Bruyn (Utrecht, 1949) has had a varied professional life, beginning as operations manager of a translation bureau, working as a desk and copy editor, and progressing to a career as a policy advisor, trainer, and writer after becoming a medical anthropologist. Her nontechnical translations have included a children’s book and a comic book. She fills much of her time now with wildlife photography and blogging about nature.

  Simon de Waal (Amsterdam, 1961) writes novels and scripts. Cop vs. Killer, Pentito, and Nemesis were nominated for best crime novel in The Netherlands and Belgium, and Pentito won Belgium’s Diamond Bullet. De Waal’s script for Lek won the Golden Calf, and he wrote and directed a film version of Cop vs. Killer. He has worked for the Amsterdam police since 1979, including as a detective-sergeant in the homicide division since 1986.

  Loes den Hollander (Nijmegen, 1948) began writing prose and poetry at the age of eight, and in 2001 she won a short-story contest, which motivated her to write twenty-four thrillers, three collections of stories, a commercial novel, and three novellas.

  Sam Garrett (Harrisburg, 1956) has translated almost forty novels and works of nonfiction from Dutch to English, has been short-listed for some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, and is the only translator to have twice won the British Society of Authors’ Vondel Prize (in 2003 and 2009). His translation of Herman Koch’s The Dinner was a best seller in the US, UK, and Canada.

  Murat Isik (Izmir, 1977) debuted in 2012 with Verloren Grond, for which he received the Bronze Owl for best Dutch-language first novel and was nominated for the Academica Literature Award. The book has been reprinted multiple times, and has been translated into German, Swedish, and Turkish. Wees Onzichtbaar, his second book, was published in 2017, and was selected as the NRC Book of the Year and nominated for the BNG Literature Award and the Halewijn Award.

  Herman Koch (Arnhem, 1953) is the author of, among others, Het Diner (The Dinner), Zomerhuis met Zwembad (Summer House with Swimming Pool), Geachte Heer M. (Dear Mr. M), and De Greppel (The Ditch). Het Diner, an international best seller, was translated into more than forty languages and was filmed in the US, The Netherlands, and Italy.

  Christine Otten (Deventer, 1961) writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her novel De Laatste Dichters (2004), based on the lives of the legendary African American group the Last Poets, was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize and was published in English as The Last Poets (2016). Her latest novel, We Hadden Liefde, We Hadden Wapens (2016), was enthusiastically reviewed and has been adapted for the stage. Otten leads creative-writing workshops in Dutch prisons. She lives in Amsterdam.

  Josh Pachter (New York, 1951) is an American writer, editor, and translator. His own short crime stories have been featured in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and many other periodicals and anthologies since the late 1960s, and his translations of crime fiction by Dutch and Belgian authors appear regularly in EQMM. He lived in Amsterdam from 1979 to 1982 and returns often, although he now makes his home in Northern Virginia.

  Anneloes Timmerije (Amsterdam, 1955) has written several nonfiction books, beginning in 1992. Her first novel, Zwartzuur (2005), won the Women & Culture Debut Prize in 2006, and was followed by De Grote Joseph (2010), the short-story collection Slaapwandelen bij Daglicht (2013), and, in collaboration with Charles den Tex, the historical novel Het Vergeten Verhaal van een Onwankelbare Liefde in Oorlogstijd (2014), which was published in
English as Finding Her.

  Walter van den Berg (Amstelveen, 1970) spent almost forty years in Osdorp, the Amsterdam neighborhood in which he set his contribution to Amsterdam Noir, but he now lives in a village by a river with his wife and dog. He has published four novels: De Hondenkoning (2004), West (2007), Van Dode Mannen Win Je Niet (2013), and Schuld (2016), which was nominated for the Libris Literature Prize.

  Mensje van Keulen (Den Haag, 1946) lives in Amsterdam. She writes novels and short stories and has published several award-winning children’s books. Her first novel was Bleekers Zomer (1972), and her most recent was Schoppenvrouw (2016). Her books frequently appear on the long and short lists for literary awards, and her body of work has been honored with the Annie Romein, Charlotte Köhler, and Constantijn Huygens prizes.

  Max van Olden (Zevenaar, 1973) debuted in 2015 with Lieve Edelachtbare, a legal thriller about a young lawyer in training that won the Shadow Prize for the best Dutch-language debut crime novel of the year. His second book, De Juiste Man (2017), a psychological thriller that explores the subject of revenge, made the long list for the Golden Noose. Van Olden is himself an attorney with a civil practice.

  BONUS MATERIAL

  Excerpt from USA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series

  Also available in the Akashic Noir Series

  Akashic Noir Series Awards & Recognition

  INTRODUCTION

  WRITERS ON THE RUN

  From USA NOIR: Best of the Akashic Noir Series, edited by Johnny Temple

  In my early years as a book publisher, I got a call one Saturday from one of our authors asking me to drop by his place for “a smoke.” I politely declined as I had a full day planned. “But Johnny,” the author persisted, “I have some really good smoke.” My curiosity piqued, I swung by, but was a bit perplexed to be greeted with suspicion at the author’s door by an unhinged whore and her near-nude john. The author rumbled over and ushered me in, promptly sitting me down on a smelly couch and assuring the others I wasn’t a problem. Moments later, the john produced a crack pipe to resume the party I had evidently interrupted. This wasn’t quite the smoke I’d envisaged, so I gracefully excused myself after a few (sober) minutes. I scurried home pondering the author’s notion that it was somehow appropriate to invite his publisher to a crack party.

  It may not have been appropriate, but it sure was noir.

  From the start, the heart and soul of Akashic Books has been dark, provocative, well-crafted tales from the disenfranchised. I learned early on that writings from outside the mainstream almost necessarily coincide with a mood and spirit of noir, and are composed by authors whose life circumstances often place them in environs vulnerable to crime.

  My own interest in noir fiction grew from my early exposure to urban crime, which I absorbed from various perspectives. I was born and raised in Washington, DC, and have lived in Brooklyn since 1990. In the 1970s and ’80s, when violent, drug-fueled crime in DC was rampant, my mother hung out with cops she’d befriended through her work as a nearly unbeatable public defender. She also grew close to some of her clients, most notably legendary DC bank robber Lester “LT” Irby (a contributor to DC Noir), who has been one of my closest friends since I was fifteen, though he was incarcerated from the early 1970s until just recently. Complicating my family’s relationship with the criminal justice system, my dad sued the police stridently in his work as legal director of DC’s American Civil Liberties Union.

  Both of my parents worked overtime. By the time my sister Kathy was nine and I was seven, we were latchkey kids prone to roam, explore, and occasionally break laws. Though an arrest for shoplifting helped curb my delinquent tendencies, the interest in crime remained. After college I worked with adolescents and completed a master’s degree in social work; my focus was on teen delinquency.

  Throughout the 1990s, my relationship with the urban underbelly expanded as I spent a great deal of time in dank nightclubs populated by degenerates and outcasts. I played bass guitar in Girls Against Boys, a rock and roll group that toured extensively in the US and Europe. The long hours on the road not spent on stage gave way to book publishing, which began as a hobby in 1996 with my friends Bobby and Mark Sullivan.

  The first book we published was The Fuck-Up, by Arthur Nersesian—a dark, provocative, well-crafted tale from the disenfranchised. A few years later Heart of the Old Country by Tim McLoughlin became one of our early commercial successes. The book was widely praised both for its classic noir voice and its homage to the people of South Brooklyn. While Brooklyn is chock-full of published authors these days, Tim is one of the few who was actually born and bred here. In his five decades, Tim has never left the borough for more than five weeks at a stretch and he knows the place, through and through, better than anyone I’ve met.

  In 2003, inspired by Brooklyn’s unique and glorious mix of cultures, Tim and I set out to explore New York City’s largest borough in book form, in a way that would ring true to local residents. Tim loves his home borough despite its flagrant flaws, and was easily seduced by the concept of working with Akashic to try and portray its full human breadth.

  He first proposed a series of books, each one set in a different neighborhood, whether it be Bay Ridge, Williamsburg, Park Slope, Fort Greene, Bed-Stuy, or Canarsie. It was an exciting idea, but it’s hard enough to publish a single book, let alone commit to a full series. After we considered various other possibilities, Tim came upon the idea of a fiction anthology organized by neighborhood, each one represented by a different author. We were looking for stylistic diversity, so we focused on “noir,” and defined it in the broadest sense: we wanted stories of tragic, soulful struggle against all odds, characters slipping, no redemption in sight.

  Conventional wisdom dictates that literary anthologies don’t sell well, but this idea was too good to resist—it seemed the perfect form for exploring the whole borough, and we got to work soliciting stories. We batted around book titles, including Under the Hood, before settling on Brooklyn Noir. The volume came together beautifully and was a surprise hit for Akashic, quickly selling through multiple printings and winning awards. (See pages 548–550 for a full list of prizes garnered by stories originally published in the Noir Series.)

  Having seen nearly every American city, large and small, through the windows of a van or tour bus, I have developed a deep fondness for their idiosyncrasies. So for me it was easy logic to take the model of Brooklyn Noir—sketching out dark urban corners through neighborhood-based short fiction—and extend it to other cities. Soon came Chicago Noir, San Francisco Noir, and London Noir (our first of many overseas locations). Selecting the right editor to curate each book has been the most important decision we make before assembling it. It’s a welcome challenge because writers are often enamored of their hometowns, and many are seduced by the urban landscape’s rough edges. The generous support of literary superheroes like George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, Dennis Lehane, and Joyce Carol Oates, all of whom have edited series volumes, has been critical.

  There are now fifty-nine books in the Noir Series. Forty of them are from American locales. As of this writing, a total of 787 authors have contributed 917 stories to the series and helped Akashic to stay afloat during perilous economic times. By publishing six to eight new volumes in the Noir Series every year, we have provided a steady venue for short stories, which have in recent times struggled with diminishing popularity. Akashic’s commitment to the short story has been rewarded by the many authors—of both great stature and great obscurity—who have allowed us to publish their work in the series for a nominal fee.

  I am particularly indebted to all sixty-seven editors who have cumulatively upheld a high editorial standard across the series. The series would never have gotten this far without rigorous quality control. There also couldn’t be a Noir Series without my devoted and tireless (if occasionally irreverent) staff led by Johanna Ingalls, Ibrahim Ahmad, and Aaron Petrovich.

  * * *

  This volume serves up a top
-shelf selection of stories from the series set in the United States. USA Noir only scratches the surface, however, and every single volume has more gems on offer.

  When I set out to compile USA Noir, I was delighted by the immediate positive responses from nearly every author I contacted. The only author on my initial invitation list who isn’t included here is one I couldn’t track down: the publisher explained to me that the writer was “literally on the run.” While I’m disappointed that we can’t include the story, the circumstance is true to the Noir Series spirit.

  And part of me—the noir part—is expecting a phone call from the writer, inviting me over for a smoke.

  Johnny Temple

  Brooklyn, NY

  July 2013

  ___________________

  More about USA Noir

  The best USA-based stories in the Akashic Noir Series, compiled into one volume and edited by Johnny Temple!

  “All the heavy hitters . . . came out for USA Noir . . . an important anthology of stories shrewdly culled by Johnny Temple.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice

  “Readers will be hard put to find a better collection of short stories in any genre.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “A must read for mystery fans, not just devotees of Akashic’s ‘Noir’ series, this anthology serves as both an introduction for newcomers and a greatest-hits package for regular readers of the series . . . There isn’t a weak story in the collection . . . Strongly recommended for readers who enjoy mysteries published by Hard Case Crime, as well as for fans of police procedurals.” —Library Journal (starred review)

  “The 37 stories in this collection represent the best of the U.S.-based anthologies, and the list of contributors include virtually anyone who’s made the best-seller list with a work of crime fiction in the last decade . . . a must-have anthology.” —Booklist (starred review)