VANCOUVER NOIR

Fourteen brand-new reasons why life isn’t all shiny and bright in the City of Glass.

Despite its rainy weather, Vancouver has a sunny disposition: diverse, optimistic, welcoming. But editor Wiebe maintains that it has its share of urban troubles: poverty, drugs, violence. Gentrification may make Vancouver’s crime look a little less gritty, but it’s just as corrosive, as Timothy Taylor’s “Saturna Island” and Robin Spano’s “The Perfect Playgroup” prove. And the process of repurposing old neighborhoods has sharp downsides disclosed by Carleigh Baker’s “The Midden.” Nathan Ripley’s “The Landecker Party” shows that criminal intent hasn’t skipped the millennials, although Nick Mamatas presents some crooks who still like the old-school ways in “The One Who Walks with a Limp.” Vancouver’s crime is also equal-opportunity. Women get their share of the action in Linda L. Richards’ “Terminal City” and R.M. Greenaway’s “The Threshold,” although the line between male domination and female empowerment can blur, as Don English reveals in “Stitches.” People with disabilities get caught up in mayhem in Kristi Charish’s “The Demon of Steveston.” And old age is no proof against crime, as S.G. Wong’s “Survivors’ Pension” and Wiebe’s “Wonderful Life” demonstrate.

Given the book's mix of wily pros, moody misfits, bewildered bystanders, and a touch of the supernatural, Wiebe makes a strong case that as far as crime is concerned, Vancouver is “a city like any other.”