Cape Cod Noir

Youthful alienation and despair dominate the 13 stories in Akashic's noir volume devoted to Cape Cod. Setting the bleak tone is William Hastings's graphic "Ten-Year Plan," in which an embittered ex-con finds work at DePuzzo's restaurant amid coke sales and rival immigrant groups eager to get back home. In Elyssa East's compelling "Second Chance," a teenage inmate at a reform school is haunted by a fatal car accident. Marred only by an improbable ending, Seth Greenland's "Bad Night in Hyannisport" convincingly portrays a college student's binge-drinking, arrest, and hangover. Paul Tremblay's "Nineteen Snapshots of Dennisport," the most imaginative selection, reveals a tragedy through descriptions of a boy's photo album from a family vacation. Dana Cameron's "Ardent" vividly shows the constraints of being a woman in Puritan times. While unlikely to be featured at the Cape Chamber of Commerce, this volume will satisfy those with a hankering for a taste of the dark side. (June)