Noir fiction can be defined as crime fiction with dark themes, often featuring 'a disturbing mixture of sex and violence.' The stories of West Jerusalem Noir are somewhat tamer; their protagonists are confronted with the dark complexities of living in a city filled with national, religious, and socioeconomic tension. West Jerusalem Noir of the Akashic Noir Series is published simultaneously with East Jerusalem Noir, a companion collection that tells of the unfulfilled hopes and dreams of Jerusalem's Arab residents, their lives vastly different from those living in the western half of the city. —Times of Israel

These two var­ied col­lec­tions of sto­ries, pub­lished simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, are set in a kalei­do­scop­ic Jerusalem that is impos­si­ble to describe with a sin­gle voice. Both vol­umes attempt to ren­der one of the world’s old­est, blood­i­est, holi­est, and most divid­ed cities . . . The sto­ries in West Jerusalem Noir vary wide­ly in scope . . . unlike the East edi­tion, some of the sto­ries in West use Israel’s cap­i­tal and the region’s strife as a back­drop rather than a fore­ground . . . It might be said that any sto­ry set in a city so steeped in vio­lent his­to­ry, so scrawled with reli­gious myth, and so flood­lit by divi­sive order is a sto­ry about search­ing, about dark­ness, and about moral qualms?—?is, in oth­er words, a noir. —Jewish Book Council, on East Jerusalem Noir and West Jerusalem Noir

Fifteen tales that capture the magic and mystery of everyday life in West Jerusalem, which has been the main area of Jewish population from the time of Israeli independence in 1948 . . . Whether these stories are peopled by soldiers, students, children, and parents, they keep asking, ‘Who belongs in Jerusalem?’ and its corollary, ‘Who does Jerusalem belong to?’—the central questions of this volume, which handles them with heartfelt sensitivity. Pushes the boundaries of noir in a welcome new direction.—Kirkus Reviews

[Of] the West Jerusalem stories . . . The best is Bernstein’s Kafkaesque tale of hiding one’s head to avoid noticing the violence that’s happening all around . . . VERDICT: Rather than collections of crime noir, these are deep dives into the anguished psyche of a grievously divided city.—Library Journal