D.H. Schleicher's Reviews > Nevada Noir : A Trilogy of Short Stories

David Arrowsmith’s crafty little trilogy of interconnected short stories “Nevada Noir” brought to mind two films: Wim Wenders’ "Paris, Texas" (mentioned in the middle story) and David Mackensie’s "Hell or High Water" (mentioned by the author as an influence). Like those two films, Arrowsmith’s collection represents a European outsider’s view of the American West. The author uses the British spellings of common words, giving his stunningly atmospheric prose the depth of the exotic.

Characters here are all addicted to something...gambling, killing, robbing, trouble. The trilogy builds to a noirish, nightmarish, crescendo…yet somehow there’s still a glimmer of hope. Each of the stories is better than the one before it, the high note at the end, the tone echoing that of the best works of Annie Proulx.

For fans of the genres…noir…and westerns…it doesn’t get much better than this.