A collection of dirt, grit, debauchery, crime, deplorable activities and complete rawness, taking a look into just how dark and demented people, us humans, can get. It’s well known around the horror community the scariest most vicious monsters are human beings, and this collection solidifies those words.
The collection itself reads fast as the action take place almost immediately in each story, always moving forward. Each story felt like we were in the middle of a dilemma from the get go, and you feel the intensity from it. With a lot of these stories in the first person view, you don’t have a lot of time to catch your breath before jumping into the next story.
This has a raw and emotional feel overall. I can sense a lot of passion involved. A lot of possible personal connections to the stories. They get deep a t times, which isn’t easy to do with short stories. But some of these stories are able to build that foundation to stay solid and get deep at times.
The themes are dark, so just be warned. Not a lot of light shines through these stories. There are a quite a few disturbing areas as well.
This collection is much more on the crime/noir/thriller side of things but I can see how it can easily slide in the horror categories. There are a lot of horrific things that happen in the stories.
I do think there is an abundance of stereotypical representation throughout. Not maliciously done, but with some of the reoccurring themes, I would have liked it spread wider a bit more. That is probably my one big gripe about the whole collection. Because the writing is sharp. The stories cut deep. And the author seems to know how to manipulate words and phrases to lead you in one direction before swerving a different way.
Brutally honest at times, Little Black Crimes will give you several types of feels, making you wonder what you would do in some of these situations, and how you would react.
Title: Little Black Crimes
Author: Nathaniel Blackhelm
Publisher: Independently Published
Publication Date: November 20, 2020
Pages: 197
Language: English
Format Reviewed: Paperback
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