PositiveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksWhat is surprising here is the breadth of settings and eras for these stories, ranging from 1950, during the relatively stable period of the Hashemite monarchy, through the paranoid years of Ba’athist rule, the sanctions era of the 1990s, and the violent years after 2003, up to the more recent threat of terrorism embodied by Daesh’s (ISIS) draconian rule over Iraq’s north ... The Iraqi authorities in general, and Baghdad’s police specifically, don’t come off well in this collection, being either ineffectual or actively criminal ... In his introduction, Shimon notes that a prominent theme in Baghdad Noir is family, and particularly the fraying of family bonds as siblings and relatives turn on each other and traditional ties loosen. I would argue, though, that the true common theme in these stories—a theme very much in the spirit of noir—is betrayal. Characters in this collection are frequently on the receiving end of unpleasant epiphanies. And as this engaging group of stories amply demonstrates, betrayal—whether by authorities, religious leaders, neighbors, colleagues, or liberators—is a subject that Iraqis know all too well.
