LITTLE BLACK CRIMES

Various characters in this debut short-story collection engage and revel in all types of sordid deeds and criminal acts.

There’s no question that Adam in the tale “The Misconception” is a disturbed individual. With aspirations to “plant his seed,” he sets his sights on an underage girl with body issues. The 11 stories in this volume stay firmly grounded in dark territory, as the cast dabbles in such malfeasances as blackmail, drugs, and murder. But Blackhelm opts for a psychological approach, and most of the tales are about the buildup to or consequences of a crime rather than the misdeed itself. In “The Darkness in the Room is Me,” for example, a married man contemplates an affair and meets a promising candidate, with predictably dour results. These narratives moreover linger in a variety of headspaces. That’s certainly true for the titular character in “Ricardo’s Second Coming,” who wants to return to an old flame, a woman he hasn’t seen in four years. But if she’s the future he craves, he’ll have to let go of his past—the voices of dead people (some of whom he has killed) that he regularly converses with. Such absorbing inner turmoil spawns surprisingly lyrical passages, sometimes in the style of a soliloquy: “Her voice, mother; do you not hear her voice through the crack in the door? It is the same voice that first spoke to me as I sat on the steps of this dormitory one sunny mid-October afternoon.” Despite all the lawbreaking and unsavory ponderings in the volume, the author skillfully tones down much of the violence, from sexual assaults to suicides. This doesn’t make the book’s expansive cast less disconcerting, even when they’re ruminating on past transgressions or fantasizing about ways to mete out revenge against someone who’s wronged them. This consistently somber collection ends on perhaps its grimmest story, “Deus Rx Machina,” about injecting drugs.

Compelling crime tales that guide readers through harsh, unnerving mindscapes.