 Retired mob enforcer, Isaiah Coleridge, returns in Laird Barron’s sequel to Blood Standard Last year I was absolutely thriller to give Laird Barron’s Blood Standard the five-star treatment, which was one of my favourite novels of 2018. However, if you’re after the cosmic horror Barron is better known for you’re in for a shock Blood Standard was a tough-as-old-boots crime novel which was so sharp it deserved to mix shoulders with the big boys of the genre; Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly watch out, there is a new kid on the block. If you want to check out our review follow the link: http://gingernutsofhorror.com/fiction-reviews/book-review-blood-standard-by-laird-barron Black Mountain is a direct sequel to Blood Standard and although it could be read as a standalone novel, I would strongly recommend reading the predecessor first. Although I enjoyed the next instalment of Isaiah Coleridge’s story it failed to live up to the exceptionally high standards of the original. Blood Standard was so good, producing something of a similar standard was a tough ask and by the end I was slightly underwhelmed by a couple of aspects. Like its predecessor Black Mountain is told in the first person by Isaiah Coleridge a violent gangster who was exiled from his home in Alaska after assaulting another mobster. Isaiah worked for a branch of the Mafia which is referred to as the ‘Outfit’, mainly as an enforcer, even though he is a man of extreme violence he could not abide cruelty inflicted upon animals, an incident which led to his current problems. Due to powerful connections, after being tortured, his life is spared and he is sent to the Catskills area of upstate New York to recuperate on a horse farm. On the farm he connected with rebellious teenager Reba, the granddaughter of the couple who own the farm, but before long she disappeared. Suspecting foul play, Isaiah investigated, meanwhile the Outfit he turned against lurked in the background seeking revenge or another double-cross. Threats were never far away. In this new story Isaiah has his private eye licence and is semi-legitimate, however, it is very difficult to get away from the long arm of the mob who are forever looking to cash-in or trade favours. When a high-ranking mob boss calls in a marker Isaiah begins to investigate the possibility that the recent murders of two local gangsters might be connected, be revenge killings or even a serial killer. As Isaiah digs deeper into these grisly murders the story takes him deep into the past. Along the way there are elements of horror, mystery and a lot of darkness. This was the main plot and ultimately the weakness of Black Mountain as there was not much else going on. As Isaiah investigated I felt I was reading into the nuts and bolts of a cold-case and any serious level of threat was absent from the book until near the end. After a while I realised I was not too bothered about finding out who the serial killer really was and that is not a particularly good sign in a crime novel. The novel lacked any significant secondary plotlines as Isaiah is living a much more balanced, less broken (dare I say boring?) life and has the same steady librarian girlfriend from the previous novel. All the great fictional detectives have issues, but Isaiah seems to be getting his life in good order and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing for the reader. We need our detectives to bleed, bend but not break, and live their lives in turmoil and chaos. Once again, many of the same support characters feature, but some of the strongest scenes feature Isaiah when he is reflecting upon his younger days in the mob, particularly those featuring an old hitman who was a mentor to Isaiah many years earlier. Isaiah Coleridge was the star of this novel and ultimately he was just not given enough to do, he’s too good a character to be investigating a vaguely interesting cold case. Laird Barron has a real flair for bone-crunching action sequences, there were a few in Black Mountain, but if Coleridge had knocked together a few more heads it might have livened things up a bit. Isaiah was a violent and very dangerous man and he rarely leaves first gear in this book, which was a shame. There was a scene where he kicks the asses of a group of white extremists, but there was not enough of it. This sequel flows effortlessly from Blood Standard and contains many of the same strengths; Isaiah’s funny view of the world, beautifully flowing crackling prose and his quirky insights into the life of a mobster who was never truly accepted into the fold. This is all the more interesting due to Isaiah’s non-Italian heritage (half Mauri) which adds a clever cultural element. I enjoyed this novel, but ultimately it was not as good as book one. However, I am still game for book three, Isaiah Coleridge’s race is far from run and I want to be in on the action, train-wreck, car-crash, bone-crunching and whatever Laird Barron decides to throw at him. Tony Jones  BLACK MOUNTAIN (AN ISAIAH COLERIDGE NOVEL) BY LAIRD BARRON When a small-time criminal named Harold Lee turns up in the Ashokan reservoir - sans heartbeat, head, or hands - the local Mafia capo hires Isaiah Coleridge to look into the matter. The Mob likes crime, but only the crime it controls... and as it turns out, Lee is the second independent contractor to meet a bad end on the business side of a serrated knife. One such death can be overlooked. Two makes a man wonder. A guy in Harold Lee's business would make his fair share of enemies, and it seems a likely case of pure revenge. But as Coledrige turns over more stones, he finds himself dragged into something deeper and more insidious than he could have imagined, in a labyrinthine case spanning decades. At the centre are an heiress moonlighting as a cabaret dancer, a powerful corporation with high-placed connections, and a serial killer who may have been honing his skills since the Vietnam War...   Comments are closed.
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