I received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.A former Mafia hit man turned private detective hunts down a serial killer who also used to moonlight as a mob hit man? Man, I really wanted to love this book. Sadly, I didn’t.Isaiah Coleridge was introduced to us in Blood Standard, and to say that his backstory is complex is an understatement. He used to make his home in Alaska where he worked as a top notch killer for the Outfit, but after he had a bloody falling out with one of the boss...

This is the second book in the hard boiled crime series featuring Isaiah Coleridge. As I noted in my review of the first book, “Blood Simple”, Coleridge is a (mostly) reformed mob enforcer who was working in Alaska until being exiled to upstate New York after a problem involving walruses pissed off the wrong man. Isaiah is half Maori and has a fondness for classic literature and dogs. I enjoyed the first book and I wasn’t at all disappointed by the second. Coleridge is now working as a PI, and t...

The Best Crime / Horror Hybrid I’ve Read… Possibly EverOver the last decade plus, Laird Barron cut his teeth writing the most visceral, mind-bending, linguistically-overachieving, philosophizing, universe-quaking horror fiction seen in this millennia. Tapped by Putnam and invited through the mainstream gate to the wider readership beyond, he crafted a crime novel featuring an unforgettable character – mafia-assassin turned anti-hero detective Isaiah Coleridge – in the fantastic novel BLOOD STAND...

Laird Barron was born in 1970. He is the author of several books including “The Imago Sequence” and “The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All”, "Occultation and Other Stories". He lives in the Rondout Valley in upstate New York.According to ‘Facebbook’ he enjoys the following authors: Roald Dahl, Shel Silverstein, Roger Zelazny, Edgar Allan Poe, Cormac McCarthy, Robert E. Howard, Algernon Blackwood, Michael Shea, Jack Vance, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Martin Cruz Smith, and H.P. Lovecraft. “Black Mount...

"Lie there, lie there, little Henry Lee'Til the flesh drops from your bonesFor the girl you have in that merry green landCan wait forever for you to come homeAnd the wind did howl, and the wind did moanLa la la la laLa la la la leeA little bird lit down on Henry Lee"- "Henry Lee"Nick Cave Black Mountain is the second of Laird Barron's Isaiah Coleridge series. Now set up with a (mostly) legal P.I. business, Coleridge seems to be going legit. He hasn't killed anybody for a bit, his relationship wi...

When two mutilated bodies of local criminals are found, signs point to a hired killer called The Croatoan. But the Croatoan has been dead for years, right? That's what Isaiah Coleridge wants to find out...Laird Barron jumped nearly to the top of my favorite authors list in 2017. When this popped up on Netgalley, I had to read it.Black Mountain continues the story of Isaiah Coleridge, part Maori former hitman trying to leave the killing behind. As Coleridge plays sleuth, his violent nature stares...

In the wake of True Detective there was a rush of readers and interest in the various influences Nic Pizzolatto drew from in that first season. One of those influences was the often stunning cosmic horror of Alaskan ex-pat Laird Barron. Know in his early years for writing some of the most dread filled short stories in the weird lit field Barron is a house hold name in the horror lit world.We didn’t need internet articles pointing us to these so called hidden gems that inspired the tone if not th...

This one really wowed me. It's even darker, funnier, more assured and more "real" than Blood Standard (the first installment in Barron's Isaiah Coleridge series, if you didn't know), which I really enjoyed. Not only is this the best Laird Barron novel, it's among my favorite things he's written, and I've read all of it! Can't wait for many more installments of the continuing adventures of Coleridge.

Maori-mobster-turned-gumshoe Isaiah Coleridge is back in Laird Barron’s sequel to “Blood Standard”, a gritty, graphic crime thriller that not only introduced the world to a new lovable wise-cracking detective but also debuted Barron’s foray into the crime/mystery genre. Barron, known for his horror/dark fantasy, follows his first crime thriller with “Black Mountain”.Just as the mob can’t seem to quit Coleridge, the horror genre can’t quite quit Barron. “Black Mountain” doesn’t fall easily into S...

Laird Barron's BLACK MOUNTAIN is his best novel yet, which is saying something. Expertly blending crime and horror, Laird's non supernatural horrors become cosmic/existential in scope and feel, similar to Peter Straub's genius novels KOKO, THE THROAT.

another great Coleridge adventure. On surer footing than the excellent first entry, we have more time for our hulking hitman to explore the rotting resorts of the Catskills and the forbidding mountains of the title, as he hunts a hunter more attuned to the death gods than himself. Coleridge is great company on this tour of Cold War killer detritus, and artifacts cherished by those who worship death.

My review of BLACK MOUNTAIN can be found at High Fever Books.Blood Standard, the book that introduced the half-Māori mob enforcer Isaiah Coleridge, was one of my favorite books of 2018. Halfway through that one, I found myself lamenting over the wait for book two. I wanted it immediately! This, of course, means that I had ridiculously high hopes for Black Mountain — hopes that Laird Barron not only met entirely, but brilliantly exceeded.Exiled from Alaska to upstate New York, Coleridge is making...

Black Mountain is book 2 in the Isaiah Coleridge saga. I hosted a series read-along with author, C.S. Humble and at the end of reading this book, we had a live chat with Laird Barron.You can watch it here:https://youtu.be/2jll2xBVYvY

In Laird Barron's Black Mountain, the 2nd installment in the Isaiah Coleridge crime thriller series, this noir novel would give you goosebumps on your skin. For Isaiah Coleridge, he's a former mob enforcer who's about to retire from the hitman business. But when he's tasked on his assignment to protect a mafia don's daughter and her fiancé from a stalker, he had thought it would be an easy task in Hudson Valley. But when he learned about Harold Lee was the second criminal to turn up dead recentl...

”’The balls on astronauts’, he said, ‘Absolute clanking steel balls. Test pilots and the men who dove the first submarines into the deep. Mysterium tremendum et fascinans, brother. Fear and attraction in the face of the tremendous mystery. We’re surrounded by majesties and horrors.’”Tremendous indeed is the latest novel by Laird Barron, that continues the telling of the misadventures of Isaiah Coleridge, half Maori ex-hitter turned into PI, in his particular path to enlightenment. Still a wonder...

Let's face it: as a narrator, who can beat a well-dressed, Chekov-referencing, half-Maori, semi-reformed hitman with a soft spot for our furry friends? Isaiah Coleridge is pretty hard not to love.And Black Mountain, the second entry in Laird Barron's series starring Isaiah, is equally hard to put down. In it, Barron -- also known for his existentially bleak and visceral horror stories -- has reached something like a perfect balance, because Black Mountain has it all. It's a twisty noir crime nov...

Unnerving Magazine ReviewListen to my conversation with the author here: https://www.unnervingmagazine.com/sin...Black Mountain takes Isiah Coleridge up a notch, takes the horror up a notch, and takes the literary leanings up a notch. Bigger and nastier, Black Mountain opens numerous avenues for future books and does so by expanding Coleridge's landscape and the mighty notion of the man himself.

As I wrap up the Isaiah Coleridge trilogy (Laird, if you are reading this, please write more!), I realized I had neglected to review the second tome in this deliciously dark and fucked up hard-boiled detective series. Shame!Isaiah is now a true full time gumshoe in the town of Kingston, New York. His relationship with his lovely girl Meg is deepening, and he is finally feeling a bit more at home far from Alaska, but his new case will stir up some elements of his past. A couple of bodies turns up...

I had absolutely loved 'Blood Standard'. To me it had appeared as a heavenly combination of hard-boiled mystery, crime thriller and revenge-drama, if not a belated bildungsroman.This book, the second one in Isaiah Coleridge series, was nothing like it. It was competent but cramped. The writing was good, but not fresh. Suspense was non-existent. Most importantly, I didn’t like a single character here. It was only about crime through a glass darkly, with odd bits of philosophy thrown in.I think I

The best Coleridge and what turns out to be an exquisite horror in the end. Literally skin-crawling, just seeing the words: Croatoan.