BLOOD STANDARD (An Isiah Coleridge Novel) by Laird Barron / Z-View
BLOOD STANDARD (An Isiah Coleridge Novel) by Laird Barron
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Hardcover: 336 pages
First sentence…
As a boy, I admired Humphrey Bogart in a big way.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Isiah Coleridge had been a hit man and enforcer for the mob. Working out of Alaska (yeah, the mob wets their beak there too), Coleridge was the gold standard. He was a big, tough half-Maori, half-Caucasian, able to handle himself. And he had more brains than you’d expect.
If Coleridge had given it any thought, he wouldn’t have punched Vitale Night, a mob captain, in the throat. Normally that would be a death sentence. Even if the jabroni deserved it. Which Night did. But Coleridge got lucky when his boss went to bat for him. Coleridge was exiled from the mob and Alaska. He was told to lay low because Vitale Night still wanted revenge.
Living in upstate New York, Isaiah Coleridge begins to adjust to a quiet life. Keeping a low profile isn’t so bad. Coleridge begins to make new friends. All is going well until a teenage girl disappears and Coleridge agrees to look into it. As the big man digs deeper, he begins to make waves and attract the kinds of attention that can be dangerous.
BLOOD STANDARD is stylish, brutal, witty, and fun.
Laird Barron is as adept at storytelling as Isaiah Coleridge is at handling a violent situation. Both Barron and Coleridge have jumped to the top of my must-read list.
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