Hamburg Noir

by Jan Karsten (Editor)

The historic northern port city of Hamburg now joins Berlin as the Akashic Noir Series continues its foray across the German landscape

From the introduction by Jan

The many facets of Hamburg’s ambivalent identity, forged over centuries, are on full display in the stories collected in this anthology. Here, we have assembled some of the city’s finest and best-known writers, luminaries in the world of crime fiction and German literature, featuring multiple recipients of the German Crime Fiction Award and the Hubert Fichte Prize, among others. Relative newcomers rub shoulders with established authors, some of whose work now spans decades . . .

The fourteen stories in this collection all look to where good (crime) fiction has always toward lesser-known settings and living situations, repeatedly drawing our attention to lives overlooked, the lost souls and the powerless who have slipped through the cracks of commerce. The perspectives on the metropolis are as diverse as the writers’ backgrounds, resulting in a varied depiction of Hamburg as a colorful hodgepodge of people inhabiting a lively city of millions. Between water and spirits, between power and oblivion, between dream and reality.

BRAND-NEW STORIES Nora Luttmer, Till Raether, Matthias Wittekindt, Ingvar Ambjørnsen, Bela B Felsenheimer, Jasmin Ramadan, Frank Göhre, Timo Blunck, Katrin Seddig, Tina Uebel, Zoë Beck, Brigitte Helbling, Kai Hensel, and Robert Brack. Translated by Noah Harley, Geoffrey C. Howes, and Paul David Young.

Genres: Noir

296 pages, Paperback

Published August 5, 2025

Reviews

[Donna Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of short stories that I found to be more esoteric and metaphysical than of a criminal bent. Even the selections that one could actually call a true crime or mystery story were not strong on noir elements at all. True noir elicits a very specific type of visceral reaction in the reader or viewer of noir literature and film and this collection just didn't conjure that up for me. In a couple of the stories there was a whisper of noir in a sentence or a word used that evoked that reaction, but it was extremely ephemeral and definitely not enough to earn this book the moniker of noir. That being said, and in all fairness, this is a collection of very fine and well-written literary stories, they're just not noir.

***I received an ARC copy of this book through a LibraryThing's Early Reviewers Giveaway. My review is strictly voluntary.***

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 3 out of 5]

The collection of short stories was a little uneven, but my favorite was REEPERBAHN 29 REVISITED by Tina Ubel. It’s about three people living in a rundown apartment building and taking care of each other.

[Miriam Downey]

Akashic Books has been highlighting crime in cities all over the world since 2004. Each book is the creation of writers of all varieties who share the underside of each neighborhood within the city. As well, each book has its own interpretation of the genre “noir.” Through the years, I have read and reviewed many of these books and enjoyed them all.

I have never visited Hamburg, but after having read Hamburg Noir, I think I want to go. Karsten notes in the introduction that like all good crime fiction, these stories look “toward lesser-known settings and living situations, repeatedly drawing our attention to lives overlooked, the lost souls and the powerless who have slipped through the cracks of commerce.” All the stories are very cleverly written and kept me entranced.

[Tom Donaghey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hamburg Noir (2025) by Akashic Books. Here is a collection of 14 short stories set in and around Hamberg, Germany, each depicting the darker side of the city. This is the city where the porto-Beatles really learned their music and what the people liked. But this is also the city of infamous adult clubs, darkened alleyways and unsolved murder.
It feels like the definition of noir is being stretched to cover these stories, but in short there isn’t a bad story in the lot. Like all the books in the Akashic Noir series you will find tales of depraved citizens, foreigners with special problems, nice ways to dispose of bodies, humor and horror. Beer and ghosts haunt these pages, but I am certain you will find something amusing within the covers.

[Les Gehman · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual with collections of short stories, some are better than others. I think a few of the entries suffered from translation from German into English, as idioms, customs, styles, etc. do not always translate exactly. Still, there were some very enjoyable stories. My favorites are "The Girl at the Dom" by Kai Hensel and "Ant Street" by Nora Luttmer.

[Note: The publisher provided me with a review copy of this book.]

[Anastacia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hamburg Noir is a collection of stories set in Hamburg. These are mostly dark stories, and most stories are excellent. There is murder, longing, ghosts, and lots of beer. A very good collection, although most aren't mysteries.

[Laurel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m a big fan of the Akashic noir series, but this edition didn’t work for me. It took me a long time to read it because I kept putting it aside to read something else. The stories seemed more bizarre than noir. Perhaps the next anthology will be better.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories, like many anthologies, is somewhat uneven in terms of style. One tale might build tension slowly as it leads up to a crime, while the next might focus more on the aftermath. And some are, well, just plain bizarre. This book is not at all what I expected in a "noir" collection. I was looking for something cynical and bleak, perhaps even slightly tragic, like the hardbitten detective who spends his life helping others but never finds happiness himself. Instead, I found a lot of ickiness, gory details worthy of a horror anthology, and way too close a look at some depraved and deranged characters. There is very little in the way of detective fiction here; rather, it's more crime fiction, and it's often from the POV of the killers. Consequently, there is little mystery, and—even worse—there's seldom a character to root for. The setting of Hamburg does not play as prominent a role in these stories as it might have, and the repetition of so many stories following the same formula makes for an underwhelming experience. There is some high-quality prose here, and the individual tales are well-written. Collectively, however, they add up to less than the sum of their parts.