The nicotine chronicles /

Child, the creator of Jack Reacher, is the editor of this anthology of stories loosely linked by the theme of smoking, and he is also among the contributors. His story is not about Reacher, but it is a riveting tale featuring a twist ending. Other contributors include Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Ames, Cara Black, Eric Bogosian, and Michael Imperioli (best known for his role as Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos). Typically for Akashic--publisher of the terrific Noir series--the stories approach the subject matter from an impressive number of angles and feature some really fine and varied writing. It is worth noting that, in some stories, the "nicotine" element is relatively peripheral to the plot; in others, though, the presence of cigarettes and/or smoking is essential. Akashic has yet to produce a dull anthology, and this one is especially good, although that's due more to the fine writing than to the linking theme.

The varied latest collection in Akashic's Drug Chronicles Series (The Marijuana Chronicles) focuses on smoking over the course of 16 stories that see characters battle their demons and set their moral baselines. The most successful entries delve bone-deep into addiction, as characters smoke to smother physical pain, loneliness, and their days. In Child's "Dying for a Cigarette," a stubborn screenwriter adds smoking into his script as a way to indicate "a small human weakness," not realizing his smoke breaks during a lunch with producers allow the Hollywood execs to exploit his own weakness and get their way. Joyce Carol Oates's "Vaping: A User's Manual" follows a high school athlete's account of his vape addiction, which deepens after his mother's cancer worsens. A cop in Bernice L. McFadden's "God's Work" kidnaps girls for a black-market ring run by a priest, all the while judging others based on their smoking habits. Despite the obvious reasons not to smoke, quitting would often be too much of a sacrifice, as a character in Eric Bogosian's "Smoking Jesus" realizes. Some stories, however, simply employ cigarettes as props, making the collection feel padded. At the high points, these writers capture the mental gymnastics behind the characters' bad decisions, and the joy such bad decisions can bring. (Sept.)

Sixteen tributes to America's guiltiest pleasure. Although editor Child acknowledges that his current collection may be more controversial than his contributions to The Cocaine Chronicles (2005) and The Marijuana Chronicles (2013), his approach to curating these tobacco tales is unapologetic. Cigarettes are above all a bonding experience. They connect a downtrodden motel maid and her employer in Hannah Tinti's "Park & Play." Resistance fighters use them to pass messages in Cara Black's "Spécial Treatment." They bring a visitor to Havana together with an unexpected kindred spirit in Achy Obejas's "The Smoke-Free Room." They help a compromised cop get out of a jam in Robert Arellano's "Climax, Oregon." In Peter Kimani's "Freshly Cut," they help Wacera, a country girl gone astray, find fellow villagers to lead her home. Child himself shows how smoke breaks can save the day in "Dying for a Cigarette." But smoking provides solace even to outsiders like the expatriate heroine of Ariel Gore's "My Simple Plan" and the feisty teenage lead of Lauren Sanders' "The Summer You Lit Up." And for the mystic at the heart of Michael Imperioli's touching "Yasiri," tobacco is little short of salvation. Even the more smoking-skeptical takes, like Christopher Sorrentino's "The Renovation of the Just" and Jonathan Ames' "Deathbed Vigil," acknowledge tobacco's allure. Only Joyce Carol Oates comes out foursquare against nicotine in "Vaping: A User's Manual." Even confirmed anti-smokers will find something to savor. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.