Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir
by Tod Goldberg
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The perfect holiday gift for the crime fiction lover in your life!
Curated by New York Times bestselling author Tod Goldberg, this collection of eleven delightful and twisted Hanukkah capers will entertain you through all eight nights of the Festival of Lights.
In Stefanie Leder's "Not a Dinner Party Person"--finalist for the ITW Thriller Award for Best Short Story--an unstable pharmaceutical rep tries not to kill anyone at her family dinner on the last night of Hanukkah; in Ivy Pochoda's "Johnny Christmas," a taciturn Gulf War vet commissions a tattoo from a man he knew from his prison days, a man not named Christmas but Goldfarb; in David L. Ulin's "Shamash," it's the last night of Hanukkah, and a live-at-home adult son considers doing something drastic to get out of his elderly father's Upper West Side apartment; in James D.F. Hannah's "Twenty Centuries," a pair of detectives solve a curiously unprompted murder during the holiday season.
This captivating collection contains old-school slapstick comedy, hardboiled noir, gritty procedurals, and poignant reminders of the meaning of Hanukkah, offering something for almost every reader willing to take the journey through these twisted tales.
With stories by: Ivy Pochoda, David L. Ulin, James D.F. Hannah, Lee Goldberg, Nikki Dolson, J.R. Angelella, Liska Jacobs, Gabino Iglesias, Stefanie Leder, and Jim Ruland, plus a foreword and story by Tod Goldberg.
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Book Details
ISBN:
9781641296137
EAN:
9781641296137
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
304
Authors:
Tod Goldberg
Publisher:
Soho Crime
The holidays are approaching, and if you have the urge to sneak away from the family festivities and curl up with a good book, I have a suggestion...Eight Very Bad Nights: A Collection of Hanukkah Noir.This collection of short stories centered around Hanukkah provide great entertainment and will appeal to everyone, regardless of your religion. After all, you don't have to be Jewish to appreciate a painful holiday spent with your boorish uncle or snoopy sister, wondering to yourself, "Aren't you dead yet?". There's something refreshing in seeing someone you despise get their just desserts (after a lavish dinner, of course). And after reading these stories, those homicidal urges should be satiated.If they aren't, please resist the urge to use this collection as a HOW TO guide to homicide (not that it doesn't contain a few good tips). Otherwise, you'll be spending the rest of your life in a prison cell, with plenty of time on your hands. Come to think of it, that's a lot of reading time, isn't it? But I digress.Several great crime writers contributed to this collection edited by best-selling writer Tod Goldberg, many whom I recognized, and a few who were new to me. You'll enjoy them all. There's even a story by Tod's brother, Lee Goldberg, a best-selling writer himself. Imagine having to edit your own brother's story submission...I wonder that that went over at the holiday dinner?
I picked this up because one of the included authors had been recommended to me. I figured it would be entertaining. It is! Each author brings their own take to this collection of Hanukkah noir. Is it religious? Maybe. Is it funny? Sometimes. Is it worth reading? Yes!! What a great collection of stories!
I'm a fan of noirish writing, and of murder/mystery novels in general. I had modest hopes for this book... and they were surpassed in a HUGE kind of a way.Almost every piece in this book would be well-placed in a serious literary journal. The writing is uniformly excellent, and some stories pack a real gut punch - "Shamash," in particular, by David L. Ulin, wound up to be kind of jaw-dropping. And the titular story, "Eight Very Bad Nights," by Tod Goldberg (who edited the collection) is really more a novella, and really engages the reader.My PLAN had been to save this for Hanukkah (HAH!), but the very first piece, "Johnny Christmas," intrigued me, given that it was in a book with "Hanukkah" in its title. Ivy Pochoda has created a world that pulls you into it and will almost certainly leave you wondering what in heck just happened there.I'm gonna read this book again - maybe even this weekend at the beach! I'll certainly read it while I'm making latkes in December. I read a LOT of books, and there are NOT a lot of books about which I feel compelled to write a review... but seriously, do yourself a favour and get this one! You don't have to be Jewish - you just have to appreciate good writing and a twisted tale. And you might find - as I have - that you now have a list of new-to-you writers to investigate!
A quality product and as advertised 👌
This is the best book I've read since I was in Hebrew school!
