A Flash of Noir is a collection of flash fiction and short, short stories, laid down old-school style by master mystery writer Christopher Pinto. Writing in the genre of gumshoe detectives and sultry dames, creepy horror and hep cat jive, Pinto has put together a series of mostly one-page, 60-second reads that will transport you to another time…a darker, more sinister time.

From smokey bars in New York City to the tropical islands of the Florida keys, A Flash of Noir takes you for a spin through the seediest gin joints and darkest alleys. One minute you’re speeding down I-95 in a hot rod, the next you’re tasting cheap whiskey in a basement tap room where the women are heartless and the men are unforgiving. Gangsters, cops, private eyes, strippers, murderers, phantoms…plus a few comedy pieces to keep you from wanting to slit your wrists.

Over 40 stories of crime fiction, ghost stories, retro fiction and short beatnik poetry plus noir-esque original photographs by the author make this a fast, fun read. There’s even a flash written entirely of song titles…see if you can list every one!

Pinto is author of the new, up-and-coming Detective Bill Riggins paranormal mystery series, of which Murder Behind the Closet Door and Murder on Tiki Island have already been met with rave reviews. Murder Under the Boards, The Atlantic City Murder Mystery is due out next…soon. For more information on the series and the author, visit Stardust Mysteries Publishing at http://stardustmysteries.com .

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It may not stand up as an art-house film (the opening and closing shots of a mime playing tennis belong in the Pretentious Metaphor Hall of Fame), but this head scratcher is an absorbing travelogue of swinging London circa 1967, courtesy of auteur tourist Michelangelo Antonioni. Blow Up is also a meticulous, paranoid murder mystery that has left its fingerprints on dozens of later films, from Coppola’s The Conversation to the recent cult item The Usual Suspects. The efforts of a fashion photographer (David Hemmings) to analyse a photo snapped off-the-cuff in a public park, which may have recorded a crime in progress, resonated at the time with conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination. From here it looks like an anticipation of up-to-the-minute anxieties about the filtering of perception through metastasising media. The movie marked the film debut of Vanessa Redgrave, and in the justly celebrated purple-paper scene, expat chanteuse-to-be Jane Birkin. –David Chute

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