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Isaiah Coleridge #2
Black Mountain
Ex-mob enforcer Isaiah Coledrige has hung out a shingle as a private eye in New York's Hudson Valley, and in his newest case, a seemingly simple murder investigation leads him to the most terrifying enemy he has ever faced
When a small-time criminal named Harold Lee turns up in the Ashokan reservoir--sans a 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 center 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. . .
A twisty, action-packed follow-up to the acclaimed Blood Standard, Black Mountain cements Laird Barron as an inventive and remarkable voice in crime fiction.
When a small-time criminal named Harold Lee turns up in the Ashokan reservoir--sans a 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 center 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. . .
A twisty, action-packed follow-up to the acclaimed Blood Standard, Black Mountain cements Laird Barron as an inventive and remarkable voice in crime fiction.
308 pages, Hardcover
First published May 7, 2019
110 people are currently reading
2160 people want to read
About the author
Laird Barron
174 books2,852 followersLaird Barron, an expat Alaskan, is the author of several books, including The Imago Sequence and Other Stories; Swift to Chase; and Blood Standard. Currently, Barron lives in the Rondout Valley of New York State and is at work on tales about the evil that men do.
Photo credit belongs to Ardi Alspach
Agent: Janet Reid of New Leaf Literary & Media
Photo credit belongs to Ardi Alspach
Agent: Janet Reid of New Leaf Literary & Media
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 165 reviews
April 24, 2019
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 Mountain" is Barron’s second novel featuring retired mob hitman Isaiah Coleridge, after 2018’s “Blood Standard”. Borron seems to have departed from ‘The Weird’ and the subgenre ‘Bizarro’ fiction to concentrate on writing mysteries. Isaiah Coleridge, is a big, hulking, half-Maori (from his mothers side) hunk of potential violence. The nonetheless bookish Isaiah Coleridge always fantasized about being a Chandleresque kinda private eye, and now he is.
In this installment, Isaiah is contacted by the Albany Syndicate to investigate the murder of thug-for-hire Henry Lee. Someone removed Lee’s head and hands with a serrated blade before dumping his corpse in the Ashokan Reservoir. Isaiah, meanwhile, discovers that Lee’s girlfriend is the daughter of an industrialist mogul whose business concerns reek of black ops espionage and government cover-ups.
“Blood Standard” and “Black Mountain" were sold as a two book deal, so time and book sales will tell if we see more of Isaiah Coleridge. Although well written and engaging, Barron breaks no new ground here, and after finishing the book a tickle of Deja Vous seems to overtake the narrative. I enjoy reading Mr. Barron, yet I believe he is not writing at his full potential.
This book is an uncorrected proof to be published May 7, 2019.
Today, 3:06 PM Wednesday, April 24, 2019 the first edition hardcover arrived.
I purchased this book at a bookstore.
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 Mountain" is Barron’s second novel featuring retired mob hitman Isaiah Coleridge, after 2018’s “Blood Standard”. Borron seems to have departed from ‘The Weird’ and the subgenre ‘Bizarro’ fiction to concentrate on writing mysteries. Isaiah Coleridge, is a big, hulking, half-Maori (from his mothers side) hunk of potential violence. The nonetheless bookish Isaiah Coleridge always fantasized about being a Chandleresque kinda private eye, and now he is.
In this installment, Isaiah is contacted by the Albany Syndicate to investigate the murder of thug-for-hire Henry Lee. Someone removed Lee’s head and hands with a serrated blade before dumping his corpse in the Ashokan Reservoir. Isaiah, meanwhile, discovers that Lee’s girlfriend is the daughter of an industrialist mogul whose business concerns reek of black ops espionage and government cover-ups.
“Blood Standard” and “Black Mountain" were sold as a two book deal, so time and book sales will tell if we see more of Isaiah Coleridge. Although well written and engaging, Barron breaks no new ground here, and after finishing the book a tickle of Deja Vous seems to overtake the narrative. I enjoy reading Mr. Barron, yet I believe he is not writing at his full potential.
This book is an uncorrected proof to be published May 7, 2019.
Today, 3:06 PM Wednesday, April 24, 2019 the first edition hardcover arrived.
I purchased this book at a bookstore.
January 25, 2021
"Lie there, lie there, little Henry Lee
'Til the flesh drops from your bones
For the girl you have in that merry green land
Can wait forever for you to come home
And the wind did howl, and the wind did moan
La la la la la
La la la la lee
A 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 with his girlfriend is going well and all around things are starting to look up... until Curtis contacts him and informs him that the mob would once again like to use his services. Not for a hit this time (though, they certainly wouldn't complain if it ended in one) but for his investigative talents. An old friend of Curtis' and a regular employee of his, one Harold Lee has been found murdered and mutilated. Thus begins an investigation that will turn up a lot of bad blood and some shed as well.
I read the first book in the series last week and decided I needed to immediately pick up this one. The first book was an enjoyable ride, but as I pointed out, surprisingly not very horrific at all for a book by someone with Barron's reputation.
This one is a lot more of what I expected from the first. This may still be a noir, but we're a lot closer to a horror noir hybrid here. There's less violence in this one, but what it does contain is more disturbing and our villain is... frankly downright scary. Fans of both genres will see a lot to love here, but those who enjoyed how the first was a straight up noir may not like some of the directions this one goes.
This one is a more poetic novel. Dreams are a recurring theme and we get a lot of symbolism (which is a recurring theme from the first book, in that Coleridge finds that the best way to solve a mystery is to get as much data as he can and hope his sub-conscious pieces it together). While this was in the first book some, there is a lot more of it here. Some of the sequences are clever and add a lot, some of them drag down the pacing a bit.
I debated on what to rate this one. On one hand I found it extremely enjoyable and I like a lot of the things it added, though some of them felt like an experiment that didn't exactly work. The first book was probably a more enjoyable read in my opinion, but not enough that I would lower the score. Another 4/5 stars.
'Til the flesh drops from your bones
For the girl you have in that merry green land
Can wait forever for you to come home
And the wind did howl, and the wind did moan
La la la la la
La la la la lee
A 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 with his girlfriend is going well and all around things are starting to look up... until Curtis contacts him and informs him that the mob would once again like to use his services. Not for a hit this time (though, they certainly wouldn't complain if it ended in one) but for his investigative talents. An old friend of Curtis' and a regular employee of his, one Harold Lee has been found murdered and mutilated. Thus begins an investigation that will turn up a lot of bad blood and some shed as well.
I read the first book in the series last week and decided I needed to immediately pick up this one. The first book was an enjoyable ride, but as I pointed out, surprisingly not very horrific at all for a book by someone with Barron's reputation.
This one is a lot more of what I expected from the first. This may still be a noir, but we're a lot closer to a horror noir hybrid here. There's less violence in this one, but what it does contain is more disturbing and our villain is... frankly downright scary. Fans of both genres will see a lot to love here, but those who enjoyed how the first was a straight up noir may not like some of the directions this one goes.
This one is a more poetic novel. Dreams are a recurring theme and we get a lot of symbolism (which is a recurring theme from the first book, in that Coleridge finds that the best way to solve a mystery is to get as much data as he can and hope his sub-conscious pieces it together). While this was in the first book some, there is a lot more of it here. Some of the sequences are clever and add a lot, some of them drag down the pacing a bit.
I debated on what to rate this one. On one hand I found it extremely enjoyable and I like a lot of the things it added, though some of them felt like an experiment that didn't exactly work. The first book was probably a more enjoyable read in my opinion, but not enough that I would lower the score. Another 4/5 stars.
January 19, 2019
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 him in the face again and again. In this volume, Coleridge tries to find the perpetrator of two murders and winds up with much more on his hands.
Laird Barron's writing is as great as ever, part Chandler, part Thompson, part Ellroy, and even some Roger Zelazny in the mix, equally adept at poetic descriptions and stark violence. I had no idea who the killer was for most of the book. I was too busy trying to piece things together along with Isaiah and Lionel.
For part of the book, I thought Isaiah was a little too capable and the book meandered a bit. Then the rug got yanked out from under me and I wolfed down what was left in one long ass-numbing sitting. The Croatoan wound up being far more interesting than your run of the mill serial killers. The book flirted with cosmic horror a bit at times. Maybe the Children of Old Leech will be mentioned in the next one?
While I love his brand of horror, sometimes you just want to see bad guys get got. Laird Barron delivers the goods here. Four out of five stars.
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 him in the face again and again. In this volume, Coleridge tries to find the perpetrator of two murders and winds up with much more on his hands.
Laird Barron's writing is as great as ever, part Chandler, part Thompson, part Ellroy, and even some Roger Zelazny in the mix, equally adept at poetic descriptions and stark violence. I had no idea who the killer was for most of the book. I was too busy trying to piece things together along with Isaiah and Lionel.
For part of the book, I thought Isaiah was a little too capable and the book meandered a bit. Then the rug got yanked out from under me and I wolfed down what was left in one long ass-numbing sitting. The Croatoan wound up being far more interesting than your run of the mill serial killers. The book flirted with cosmic horror a bit at times. Maybe the Children of Old Leech will be mentioned in the next one?
While I love his brand of horror, sometimes you just want to see bad guys get got. Laird Barron delivers the goods here. Four out of five stars.
March 27, 2019
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 bosses Isaiah was exiled to in upstate New York. Determined to leave his old ways behind Isaiah has become a private detective, but he also doesn’t mind jobs where his skills as an enforcer might come in handy. He also has to maintain a delicate relationship with the local mobsters so when one of them comes to him with an ugly job Isaiah is in no position to refuse.
Two of the local thugs have been murdered in gruesome ways, and the boss wants to know if they’re connected and who might be behind it. Isaiah reluctantly begins to check out it out and quickly learns that a legendary hit man long thought retired or dead might be behind it. It also turns out that this guy’s hobby when not killing people for money was killing people for fun. If the mob connections weren’t bad enough it also seems like this man might have ties to the military and there’s some very rich people in the mix as well. Despite his plate being pretty full Isaiah also has taken on a gig trying to protect a local woman from a family of thugs because she's dating the ex of one of them.
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? And it is. Frankly, it’s too much. This was my problem with the first book, too. There’s a great idea in there with the idea of an ex-mob hit man trying to kinda go straight but getting tangled up in bloody messes. However, everything has to get so complicated that it all gets bogged down as Isaiah just pinballs from one thing to the next. The core story of an ex-hit man hunting a legendary ex-hit man is great, but the bad guy can’t just be an insane serial killer too. He also has to be wrapped up in a vast conspiracy that is pretty ridiculous so I guess mob killer/serial killer just wasn’t enough.
And that’s kind of the problem to all of it. Barron has good ideas and is a capable writer, but he just never knows when to stop adding layers to the cake and focus on shaping the elements he already has into something edible. Eventually it just collapses on itself from it's own weight. For example, the big subplot in this book is dumped to the back burner and is pretty much resolved with a couple of sentences late in the book as action that we don't see. So it was just a distraction in an already overstuffed book.
There’s the core of a really cool character and series here, but it took too much effort for me to dig it out. More bloody violence and less plot, please.
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 bosses Isaiah was exiled to in upstate New York. Determined to leave his old ways behind Isaiah has become a private detective, but he also doesn’t mind jobs where his skills as an enforcer might come in handy. He also has to maintain a delicate relationship with the local mobsters so when one of them comes to him with an ugly job Isaiah is in no position to refuse.
Two of the local thugs have been murdered in gruesome ways, and the boss wants to know if they’re connected and who might be behind it. Isaiah reluctantly begins to check out it out and quickly learns that a legendary hit man long thought retired or dead might be behind it. It also turns out that this guy’s hobby when not killing people for money was killing people for fun. If the mob connections weren’t bad enough it also seems like this man might have ties to the military and there’s some very rich people in the mix as well. Despite his plate being pretty full Isaiah also has taken on a gig trying to protect a local woman from a family of thugs because she's dating the ex of one of them.
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? And it is. Frankly, it’s too much. This was my problem with the first book, too. There’s a great idea in there with the idea of an ex-mob hit man trying to kinda go straight but getting tangled up in bloody messes. However, everything has to get so complicated that it all gets bogged down as Isaiah just pinballs from one thing to the next. The core story of an ex-hit man hunting a legendary ex-hit man is great, but the bad guy can’t just be an insane serial killer too. He also has to be wrapped up in a vast conspiracy that is pretty ridiculous so I guess mob killer/serial killer just wasn’t enough.
And that’s kind of the problem to all of it. Barron has good ideas and is a capable writer, but he just never knows when to stop adding layers to the cake and focus on shaping the elements he already has into something edible. Eventually it just collapses on itself from it's own weight. For example, the big subplot in this book is dumped to the back burner and is pretty much resolved with a couple of sentences late in the book as action that we don't see. So it was just a distraction in an already overstuffed book.
There’s the core of a really cool character and series here, but it took too much effort for me to dig it out. More bloody violence and less plot, please.
May 13, 2019
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.
May 9, 2021
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 the Albany mob wants him to investigate the murder of one (and possibly two) of its independent contractors. His search leads him to an infamous, elderly hitman known as the Croatoan, a shady corporation and an heiress/burlesque dancer. It was interesting to see how hitmen, including Coleridge, are groomed through an informal mentoring program. They seem to recognize who has the potential to excel at this craft. He investigates with the help of his friend Lionel, who is ex-military and also a former mercenary. I like the author’s writing style. The dialogue was sharp. I particularly liked the exchanges between Coleridge and Lionel. The plot was tight and wasn’t resolved by someone being an idiot or suddenly confessing everything. The author is also very good at describing characters, scenery and action sequences. I will definitely continue reading the series.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
Coleridge is now working as a PI, and the Albany mob wants him to investigate the murder of one (and possibly two) of its independent contractors. His search leads him to an infamous, elderly hitman known as the Croatoan, a shady corporation and an heiress/burlesque dancer. It was interesting to see how hitmen, including Coleridge, are groomed through an informal mentoring program. They seem to recognize who has the potential to excel at this craft. He investigates with the help of his friend Lionel, who is ex-military and also a former mercenary. I like the author’s writing style. The dialogue was sharp. I particularly liked the exchanges between Coleridge and Lionel. The plot was tight and wasn’t resolved by someone being an idiot or suddenly confessing everything. The author is also very good at describing characters, scenery and action sequences. I will definitely continue reading the series.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
May 30, 2025
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 Stephen King territory, but it comes close. There are certainly creepy, bump-in-the-night, inexplicable aspects of the novel that would fit comfortably in any of the weird, fantastical horror stories for which Barron is best known.
Coleridge is hired by a local capo to investigate the brutal murders of two mafia assassins, known to be quite skilled in the arts of assassination-for-hire. Reluctantly, Coleridge takes the case. He wants out of the mob, but he feels like the mob is keeping its dirty hooks into him for some future endeavor. This case doesn’t help.
It doesn’t help, either, that the m.o.s are reminiscent of the work of the Croatoan, a legendary mob killer who is more Bogeyman than real. The Croatoan is a bedtime story that mob bosses tell their kids. Over the course of fifty years, the legendary hitman has racked up a tally of over 200 kills, although most mobsters would say that that is an overly conservative estimate.*
Add to that the fact that Coleridge’s friend in the Justice Department says that the Croatoan is not only a real person but is also being investigated by the FBI for a string of serial killings across the country. This guy doesn’t just kill for hire, he kills for fun.
Somewhere along the line, Coleridge gets the sneaking suspicion that he is in way over his head. Government experiments, top-secret military sites, multinational corporations involved in bio-warfare, and a killer that can seemingly change his face and identity at will and seems to have an incredible, superhuman healing ability.
Still, it’s all in a day’s work for Coleridge. And if you gotta go out, you might as well go big.
“Black Mountain” cements Coleridge as a new hard-boiled hero for the ages, and it proves that Barron is certainly no one-trick pony. I look forward to the new Coleridge novel soon...
*5/30/2025 addendum: So, I recently discovered that Barron may have (probably) based the Croatoan on a real-life serial killer, Richard Kuklinski, a.k.a. the Ice Man. The FBI can attribute only five actual murders directly to him, and they suspect possibly ten more. Kuklinski himself admits to killing over a hundred more people as a hit-man early in his career. To date, the FBI can't corroborate this, but Kuklinski's status as a stone-cold psychopath is well-established. He died in prison (thankfully) in 2005.
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 Stephen King territory, but it comes close. There are certainly creepy, bump-in-the-night, inexplicable aspects of the novel that would fit comfortably in any of the weird, fantastical horror stories for which Barron is best known.
Coleridge is hired by a local capo to investigate the brutal murders of two mafia assassins, known to be quite skilled in the arts of assassination-for-hire. Reluctantly, Coleridge takes the case. He wants out of the mob, but he feels like the mob is keeping its dirty hooks into him for some future endeavor. This case doesn’t help.
It doesn’t help, either, that the m.o.s are reminiscent of the work of the Croatoan, a legendary mob killer who is more Bogeyman than real. The Croatoan is a bedtime story that mob bosses tell their kids. Over the course of fifty years, the legendary hitman has racked up a tally of over 200 kills, although most mobsters would say that that is an overly conservative estimate.*
Add to that the fact that Coleridge’s friend in the Justice Department says that the Croatoan is not only a real person but is also being investigated by the FBI for a string of serial killings across the country. This guy doesn’t just kill for hire, he kills for fun.
Somewhere along the line, Coleridge gets the sneaking suspicion that he is in way over his head. Government experiments, top-secret military sites, multinational corporations involved in bio-warfare, and a killer that can seemingly change his face and identity at will and seems to have an incredible, superhuman healing ability.
Still, it’s all in a day’s work for Coleridge. And if you gotta go out, you might as well go big.
“Black Mountain” cements Coleridge as a new hard-boiled hero for the ages, and it proves that Barron is certainly no one-trick pony. I look forward to the new Coleridge novel soon...
*5/30/2025 addendum: So, I recently discovered that Barron may have (probably) based the Croatoan on a real-life serial killer, Richard Kuklinski, a.k.a. the Ice Man. The FBI can attribute only five actual murders directly to him, and they suspect possibly ten more. Kuklinski himself admits to killing over a hundred more people as a hit-man early in his career. To date, the FBI can't corroborate this, but Kuklinski's status as a stone-cold psychopath is well-established. He died in prison (thankfully) in 2005.
June 23, 2019
The Best Crime / Horror Hybrid I’ve Read… Possibly Ever
Over 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 STANDARD.
The follow-up arrived recently, and it came to my door drenched in blood and stinking of the abyss.
BLACK MOUNTAIN is a tour-de-force that represents the great culmination of Barron’s seasoned crime-weaving, plot-thickening chops and his black-ironed, horror-infused sledgehammer.
THIS IS THE BOOK BARRON FANS HAVE WAITED FOR.
If you dug Barron’s horror show theatrics, you will squirm in giddy relish on your favorite reading chair to see descriptions like: “Carved from the primordial rock, the statue glistened, black as creosote from eons of blood splatter. It absorbed red fire glow and spat back the tectonic roar of a subterranean river, a demonic Mississippi or Amazon or Nile…”
And if you’re looking for more crackling noir, you’ll find lines like: “Reality crumpled and bloomed like a cigarette burn on a movie screen” to your taste.
What’s incredible about this book is that Barron is able to handle the double-duty of creating the architecture of a great mystery – the kind that is thrown wide like a net then pulled more and more tightly like a snare around your throat as you turn the pages – with one of the scariest books I’ve read in years. I mean, is this horror? Is it crime? Is it noir? Who cares! It’s awesome.
BLACK MOUNTAIN is madly entertaining. One of those books you literally put down so that you can slow the pace at which you are burning through it. Even so, I read the thing in three sittings, and wished I’d had the sequel (coming, it’s coming) to pick up and begin tearing through.
While I’d recommend starting with BLOOD STANDARD, you can also read BLACK MOUNTAIN as a standalone joint and have no issues (that said, read BLOOD STANDARD!).
Suffice to say this is a 5-star read and I think will be the book that not only satisfies Barron’s ever-growing swath of horror and crime fans, but the one that will launch him and Coleridge to the next level of mainstream readership. I’m already excited for the inevitable screen adaption.
If you kin to gut-churning cosmic horror and love a good crime read – one complete with femme fatales, mysterious government conspiracies, nasty henchmen and – oh yeah – a possibly supernatural serial killer – this is the book you want in your eyeballs el pronto.
BLACK MOUNTAIN is my favorite book of the year to date, an honor it will almost certainly retain.
Over 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 STANDARD.
The follow-up arrived recently, and it came to my door drenched in blood and stinking of the abyss.
BLACK MOUNTAIN is a tour-de-force that represents the great culmination of Barron’s seasoned crime-weaving, plot-thickening chops and his black-ironed, horror-infused sledgehammer.
THIS IS THE BOOK BARRON FANS HAVE WAITED FOR.
If you dug Barron’s horror show theatrics, you will squirm in giddy relish on your favorite reading chair to see descriptions like: “Carved from the primordial rock, the statue glistened, black as creosote from eons of blood splatter. It absorbed red fire glow and spat back the tectonic roar of a subterranean river, a demonic Mississippi or Amazon or Nile…”
And if you’re looking for more crackling noir, you’ll find lines like: “Reality crumpled and bloomed like a cigarette burn on a movie screen” to your taste.
What’s incredible about this book is that Barron is able to handle the double-duty of creating the architecture of a great mystery – the kind that is thrown wide like a net then pulled more and more tightly like a snare around your throat as you turn the pages – with one of the scariest books I’ve read in years. I mean, is this horror? Is it crime? Is it noir? Who cares! It’s awesome.
BLACK MOUNTAIN is madly entertaining. One of those books you literally put down so that you can slow the pace at which you are burning through it. Even so, I read the thing in three sittings, and wished I’d had the sequel (coming, it’s coming) to pick up and begin tearing through.
While I’d recommend starting with BLOOD STANDARD, you can also read BLACK MOUNTAIN as a standalone joint and have no issues (that said, read BLOOD STANDARD!).
Suffice to say this is a 5-star read and I think will be the book that not only satisfies Barron’s ever-growing swath of horror and crime fans, but the one that will launch him and Coleridge to the next level of mainstream readership. I’m already excited for the inevitable screen adaption.
If you kin to gut-churning cosmic horror and love a good crime read – one complete with femme fatales, mysterious government conspiracies, nasty henchmen and – oh yeah – a possibly supernatural serial killer – this is the book you want in your eyeballs el pronto.
BLACK MOUNTAIN is my favorite book of the year to date, an honor it will almost certainly retain.
October 20, 2025
I don’t write reviews.
“It’s later than you think. Time has come for you to behold a terrible wonder before we sink into the wall of sleep.”
As promised, the Isaiah Coleridge stories are getting cosmic. We have some Barronisms, you can usually drink to them in his horror work: time is a ring, wonders and horrors, ritualistic murder, things that can see into you, the ouroboros, fungi with weird properties, what’s lurking under the mountain, ancient burial pits, corporations who are conspiring with (or are part of) cults, the dead don’t die, consciousness isn’t stuck to one body, and many more old favourites. Lizz is absolutely thrilled.
I am rooting for Isaiah. He’s really not a bad guy for an ex-hit man: faithful to his gf, a good role model for her son, loyal to his friends, keeps his promises, loves animals. Sure he’s killed a few… hundred guys, but they were assholes, I’m sure of it.
“‘An infamous murderer once characterized his existence as a violent distance between realities. How would you characterize yours?’”
A fluffy, distance between two pillows, met with crochet and book bridges. Thanks for asking! ψ(｀∇´)ψ
Book 7 - Laird & I Will Follow: A Laird Barron Retrospective
“It’s later than you think. Time has come for you to behold a terrible wonder before we sink into the wall of sleep.”
As promised, the Isaiah Coleridge stories are getting cosmic. We have some Barronisms, you can usually drink to them in his horror work: time is a ring, wonders and horrors, ritualistic murder, things that can see into you, the ouroboros, fungi with weird properties, what’s lurking under the mountain, ancient burial pits, corporations who are conspiring with (or are part of) cults, the dead don’t die, consciousness isn’t stuck to one body, and many more old favourites. Lizz is absolutely thrilled.
I am rooting for Isaiah. He’s really not a bad guy for an ex-hit man: faithful to his gf, a good role model for her son, loyal to his friends, keeps his promises, loves animals. Sure he’s killed a few… hundred guys, but they were assholes, I’m sure of it.
“‘An infamous murderer once characterized his existence as a violent distance between realities. How would you characterize yours?’”
A fluffy, distance between two pillows, met with crochet and book bridges. Thanks for asking! ψ(｀∇´)ψ
Book 7 - Laird & I Will Follow: A Laird Barron Retrospective
October 26, 2025
I think I liked this even more than the first one. So much so I just bought an overpriced paperback copy so I have a matching set
March 11, 2024
Intensely dark, Baird infuses the palpably taut detective narrative following the hunt for a deranged serial killer with deeply disturbing depravity and tastes of cosmic horror and supernatural menace that chill to the bone. This is a definite departure from Blood Standard, decidedly more introspective and less violent but a hell of a lot more suspenseful, with the mafia and corporate conspiracy remaining central themes. It's a superb crime noir imbued with horror, rich with lyrical prose and symbolic imagery from frequent dream and flashback sequences.
April 29, 2019
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 ends meet as a private investigator. As Black Mountain opens, we find him working a cheating spouse case, the aggrieved party of which is an Aryan gang member out to put the hurt on Coleridge’s client. Right off the bat, Barron delivers a big fight scene that showcases Coleridge’s talents for violence, which also has the added bonus of reading about an Aryan scumbag getting beat down in glorious detail. Few things are as satisfying as reading about a white supremacist getting his ass handed to him, but there are, of course, complications to follow. The Aryan is in league with the mob, and in order to square things and ensure he doesn’t get one in the neck, Coleridge is forced to take on a job for a local crime boss. One of said boss’s goons has recently turned up dead, decapitated, and missing his hands…and he’s not the first one. The killer’s signature is one that goes back decades and matches the work of a highly prolific serial murderer known as the Croatoan.
At its heart, Black Mountain sounds like the start of yet another dime-a-dozen serial killer thriller, but Barron adds a lot of depth to this scenario, as well a hell of a lot of cosmic creepiness. Laird Barron is a name well-known in horror circles, thanks to books like The Croning and his collection, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories. While Blood Standard was straight-up PI noir, Black Mountain takes on greater, and subtler, weight with its infusion of some small cosmic horror elements. That’s not to suggest that Black Mountain is a work of supernatural terror or a Lovecraftian creature feature — it’s not, although it does have plenty of grim moments that help blur genre lines. It is, however, most certainly a grim work of PI noir, much like its predecessor, and Coleridge spends plenty of time reflecting on his place in the universe and the cosmic implications of his existence, as well as those of the Croatoan. We get minor nods toward and mentions of H.P. Lovecraft and the unknowable, as well as a grand conspiracy that suggests possible conclusions, but the central threats herein are entirely human.
Coleridge’s cosmic wonderings are a part of what made Black Mountain so rich for me (the secrets of the Croatoan were another, but I certainly won’t go into detail about that). As established in Blood Standard, Colerdige is a smart dude. For as street smart and tough as he is, there’s plenty of brains to match all that brawn. He’s also a hunter, primarily of humans, and he knows that in order to track his prey, he has to play certain roles. One of the things I dug about his official status as a PI was Coleridge’s, and Barron’s, affectations toward the noir genre. His office isn’t a place to hang his hat, but rather, specifically, his homburg. Although it’s set in the present-day, many of the characters converse in old-fashioned nods to the 1930s. Coleridge, at one point, explains that he’s “looking into a murder most foul.” His FBI back-channel contact says of some mobsters that he’s “counting the minutes until they apparate back to their lairs.” We even get a dazzling femme fatale mixed up in the proceedings!
Black Mountain is a stunning sophomore investigation for Coleridge, and with the set-up for this character already established in his debut, both Barron and Isaiah have clearly gotten a comfortable grip on defining their new state of affairs and the territory they now both inhabit. It’s also very intriguing to see Barron slowly expanding the boundaries of those territories, which leaves me wondering what shape and form future Coleridge novels could take. Could this, for instance, grow into a more overtly cosmic horror series akin to John Connolly’s Charlie Parker books? I honestly don’t know, but the thought intrigues the hell out of me! This is a propulsive, energetic read, one that kept me up late a few nights turning the pages until sleep became impossible to fight. I wanted to live in this book for as long as I could, but I also couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. Black Mountain is simply phenomenal, and an easy contender for one of 2019’s best.
[Note: I received an advance readers copy of this title from the publisher.]
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 ends meet as a private investigator. As Black Mountain opens, we find him working a cheating spouse case, the aggrieved party of which is an Aryan gang member out to put the hurt on Coleridge’s client. Right off the bat, Barron delivers a big fight scene that showcases Coleridge’s talents for violence, which also has the added bonus of reading about an Aryan scumbag getting beat down in glorious detail. Few things are as satisfying as reading about a white supremacist getting his ass handed to him, but there are, of course, complications to follow. The Aryan is in league with the mob, and in order to square things and ensure he doesn’t get one in the neck, Coleridge is forced to take on a job for a local crime boss. One of said boss’s goons has recently turned up dead, decapitated, and missing his hands…and he’s not the first one. The killer’s signature is one that goes back decades and matches the work of a highly prolific serial murderer known as the Croatoan.
At its heart, Black Mountain sounds like the start of yet another dime-a-dozen serial killer thriller, but Barron adds a lot of depth to this scenario, as well a hell of a lot of cosmic creepiness. Laird Barron is a name well-known in horror circles, thanks to books like The Croning and his collection, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories. While Blood Standard was straight-up PI noir, Black Mountain takes on greater, and subtler, weight with its infusion of some small cosmic horror elements. That’s not to suggest that Black Mountain is a work of supernatural terror or a Lovecraftian creature feature — it’s not, although it does have plenty of grim moments that help blur genre lines. It is, however, most certainly a grim work of PI noir, much like its predecessor, and Coleridge spends plenty of time reflecting on his place in the universe and the cosmic implications of his existence, as well as those of the Croatoan. We get minor nods toward and mentions of H.P. Lovecraft and the unknowable, as well as a grand conspiracy that suggests possible conclusions, but the central threats herein are entirely human.
Coleridge’s cosmic wonderings are a part of what made Black Mountain so rich for me (the secrets of the Croatoan were another, but I certainly won’t go into detail about that). As established in Blood Standard, Colerdige is a smart dude. For as street smart and tough as he is, there’s plenty of brains to match all that brawn. He’s also a hunter, primarily of humans, and he knows that in order to track his prey, he has to play certain roles. One of the things I dug about his official status as a PI was Coleridge’s, and Barron’s, affectations toward the noir genre. His office isn’t a place to hang his hat, but rather, specifically, his homburg. Although it’s set in the present-day, many of the characters converse in old-fashioned nods to the 1930s. Coleridge, at one point, explains that he’s “looking into a murder most foul.” His FBI back-channel contact says of some mobsters that he’s “counting the minutes until they apparate back to their lairs.” We even get a dazzling femme fatale mixed up in the proceedings!
Black Mountain is a stunning sophomore investigation for Coleridge, and with the set-up for this character already established in his debut, both Barron and Isaiah have clearly gotten a comfortable grip on defining their new state of affairs and the territory they now both inhabit. It’s also very intriguing to see Barron slowly expanding the boundaries of those territories, which leaves me wondering what shape and form future Coleridge novels could take. Could this, for instance, grow into a more overtly cosmic horror series akin to John Connolly’s Charlie Parker books? I honestly don’t know, but the thought intrigues the hell out of me! This is a propulsive, energetic read, one that kept me up late a few nights turning the pages until sleep became impossible to fight. I wanted to live in this book for as long as I could, but I also couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. Black Mountain is simply phenomenal, and an easy contender for one of 2019’s best.
[Note: I received an advance readers copy of this title from the publisher.]
May 11, 2025
I love Barron to bits but after reading the first of the Isaiah Coleridge's novels; Blood Standard, I never had this overwhelming urge to seek the next book within the series (this novel, Black Mountain). I waited for his (at the time) new short horror story collection, Not a Speck of Light instead. Now Blood Standard is, by all account a good novel that I felt my enjoyment of it was purely down to Barron's writing. Without Barron's prose and writing technique, Blood Standard might've been a subpar hardboiled thriller romp. Despite the lack of straight horror element, Blood Standard still fit well within Barron's bibliography: a grizzled main character traversing a dark and harrowing situation. I liked it but it was nothing more than a written love letter to hyperviolent pulp of yore but Black Mountain on the other hand is a different matter. This sequel is less of a straight hardboiled like its previous entry but the closest it gets to be a weird fiction style detective story ala True Detective season 1.
First of all, an over simplified summary of Black Mountain follows an ex-mob enforcer: Coleridge, now a private detective, applying his trade in New York's Hudson Valley. His latest case came from a local capo in investigating the murder of a local mobster, hard to identified due to its gruesome manner it was found. It wasn't long in his quest, that Coleridge found out there was another mobster found dead in a similar manner prior. Simple on the surface, the story of Black Mountain's is a web of conspiracies and overlapping interests. While the overload elements within the previous entry, Blood Standard felt overstuffed, here it's well integrated within the story. The cosmic horror elements within previous entry felt like merely dark imageries and brooding mood pieces are instead an organic tone of the story here. Coleridge's universe maybe one that agrees with a cosmic fatalism but Coleridge is a brute force swimming against it.
An element that's at play here is the ghost of Coleridge's past that are represented by his long dead mentor, Gene Kavenaugh and the villain, the shadowy figure thought to be dead, Croatoan. Coleridge might've ended up like the jaded Kavenaugh that sees only death and violence within everyone and everything while the Croatoan is Coleridge if he never had found and struck a relationship with someone like Meg the librarian from the previous novel and strengthen his hold outside of the criminal underworld. Both are an extreme portrayal of violence, when being tied to the mob for so long. It was a philosophical conundrum present by the novel's story.
Barron's prose here is as magnificent as always, blending the atmospheric sentiments from cosmic horror dread of weird fiction and world-weariness of the hardboiled genre perfectly with prose that are both muscular and lyrical prose.
While it's not breaking new ground, Black Mountain shows Barron's writing strengths in crafting a really atmospheric blend of horror and hardboiled. It's Jim Thompson or Dashiell Hammett meets Lovecraft, producing an entertaining, blood-spattered novel with a meticulously constructed plot that masterfully braids several narratives into a single story. The third novel, here we go!
First of all, an over simplified summary of Black Mountain follows an ex-mob enforcer: Coleridge, now a private detective, applying his trade in New York's Hudson Valley. His latest case came from a local capo in investigating the murder of a local mobster, hard to identified due to its gruesome manner it was found. It wasn't long in his quest, that Coleridge found out there was another mobster found dead in a similar manner prior. Simple on the surface, the story of Black Mountain's is a web of conspiracies and overlapping interests. While the overload elements within the previous entry, Blood Standard felt overstuffed, here it's well integrated within the story. The cosmic horror elements within previous entry felt like merely dark imageries and brooding mood pieces are instead an organic tone of the story here. Coleridge's universe maybe one that agrees with a cosmic fatalism but Coleridge is a brute force swimming against it.
An element that's at play here is the ghost of Coleridge's past that are represented by his long dead mentor, Gene Kavenaugh and the villain, the shadowy figure thought to be dead, Croatoan. Coleridge might've ended up like the jaded Kavenaugh that sees only death and violence within everyone and everything while the Croatoan is Coleridge if he never had found and struck a relationship with someone like Meg the librarian from the previous novel and strengthen his hold outside of the criminal underworld. Both are an extreme portrayal of violence, when being tied to the mob for so long. It was a philosophical conundrum present by the novel's story.
Barron's prose here is as magnificent as always, blending the atmospheric sentiments from cosmic horror dread of weird fiction and world-weariness of the hardboiled genre perfectly with prose that are both muscular and lyrical prose.
While it's not breaking new ground, Black Mountain shows Barron's writing strengths in crafting a really atmospheric blend of horror and hardboiled. It's Jim Thompson or Dashiell Hammett meets Lovecraft, producing an entertaining, blood-spattered novel with a meticulously constructed plot that masterfully braids several narratives into a single story. The third novel, here we go!
Read
February 19, 2022Black 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
You can watch it here:
https://youtu.be/2jll2xBVYvY
June 9, 2019
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 the story of True Detective. Look I like weird brooding cosmic horor Laird Barron as much as the next horror reader, but it is his last two novels that really spoke to me.
Black Mountain is the second in a series featuring ex-hitman Isiah Coleridge who is forced to leave Alaska and the Mob. Now serving as private detective we have Coleridge returning as the same interesting character in pleasantly different feeling book. The second book does not feel like a rehash that is perhaps the best news.
Let me go deeper on why that news will be music to the ears of Laird Barron’s readers. The dark tone and plot of this novel shows more of that super dark tone we all know Barron is capable of, while still delivering a fun crime read. Even as the story goes darker, a brutal serial killer that appears to be targeting mob killers is weird enough. Mix it with the fun sarcastic almost Elmore Leonard style dialogue and you have a great combo.
The serial killer part of the story certainly would have worked in its own novel even with a dark SEVEN like feel. Coleridge investigating the killer known as the Croatoan is interesting enough for a novel alone, this killer was thought to be dead long ago. But Coleridge and his attempts to leave violence behind is equally compelling and that is where the fun comes in.
Barron blends in a variety of influences that you don’t notice in the moment, but after you close the book it stays with you. That is when you smile thinking about the last pages feeling like Ellroy or Chandler. That is great, and plenty of writers do that, but how many can get a Harlan Ellison or Thomas Liggoti feel into that mix? Not many. I love reading a novel and getting a feeling for what their book shelves look like. That is a compliment even if some might not see it that way.
The first book Blood Standard took me by surprise a bit more, but that is to me expected when a author takes a big turn. Both these books are solid entries in a series that will have me locked in.
We didn’t need internet articles pointing us to these so called hidden gems that inspired the tone if not the story of True Detective. Look I like weird brooding cosmic horor Laird Barron as much as the next horror reader, but it is his last two novels that really spoke to me.
Black Mountain is the second in a series featuring ex-hitman Isiah Coleridge who is forced to leave Alaska and the Mob. Now serving as private detective we have Coleridge returning as the same interesting character in pleasantly different feeling book. The second book does not feel like a rehash that is perhaps the best news.
Let me go deeper on why that news will be music to the ears of Laird Barron’s readers. The dark tone and plot of this novel shows more of that super dark tone we all know Barron is capable of, while still delivering a fun crime read. Even as the story goes darker, a brutal serial killer that appears to be targeting mob killers is weird enough. Mix it with the fun sarcastic almost Elmore Leonard style dialogue and you have a great combo.
The serial killer part of the story certainly would have worked in its own novel even with a dark SEVEN like feel. Coleridge investigating the killer known as the Croatoan is interesting enough for a novel alone, this killer was thought to be dead long ago. But Coleridge and his attempts to leave violence behind is equally compelling and that is where the fun comes in.
Barron blends in a variety of influences that you don’t notice in the moment, but after you close the book it stays with you. That is when you smile thinking about the last pages feeling like Ellroy or Chandler. That is great, and plenty of writers do that, but how many can get a Harlan Ellison or Thomas Liggoti feel into that mix? Not many. I love reading a novel and getting a feeling for what their book shelves look like. That is a compliment even if some might not see it that way.
The first book Blood Standard took me by surprise a bit more, but that is to me expected when a author takes a big turn. Both these books are solid entries in a series that will have me locked in.
December 25, 2024
I enjoyed this second novel of the Isaiah Coleridge series more than the first one. The focus shifts to Coleridge's newly founded detective agency, so the character feels more centered. The mystery also has a much more satisfying ending than in the first book. The ending is a bit trippy, which is a nice change of pace.
May 27, 2019
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.
May 26, 2019
”’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 wonderful noir thriller, femme fatale included, but in this second offering Barron throws a few glimpses into the abyss, spiraling into an ending that is pure cosmic horror (no matter the psychological read).
Barron continues to mesmerize me with his narrative voice: I think he could write romantic novels and I still would fall for it.
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 wonderful noir thriller, femme fatale included, but in this second offering Barron throws a few glimpses into the abyss, spiraling into an ending that is pure cosmic horror (no matter the psychological read).
Barron continues to mesmerize me with his narrative voice: I think he could write romantic novels and I still would fall for it.
Read
January 28, 2024Laird Barron is one of those writers who I really want to love, but I've noticed that there are aspects of his work that's kept me at a distance. What I have read so far, I have liked to various extents but it feels like there's something missing. For as many successes he has, there are as many misfires that I've noticed in my journey with the animal loving former hitman turned PI Isaiah Coleridge.
For one, Barron doesn't waste much time with this one and starts the book out rolling. The language in this is stark and forceful, Barron has found his voice in this series and the one he runs with is a strong one. It was one of the things that kept me coming back to this book even as I felt its flaws kept rearing their heads at me. Barron's prose moves and sinks its claws into you without letting you go, filling you in with the atmosphere unlike the previous novel where it felt like Barron was finding his voice as the novel was moving along. Barron is proving to be one of the most gifted prose stylists of his generation.
On the other hand, I must agree with Kemper's critique that Barron stacks too many ideas within this narrative to the point where one might become disoriented by all that's going on. There's the main mystery, then there's some side gigs that Coleridge and his buddies take on, and then there's this massive conspiracy that reaches back to the Vietnam War. I mean hell, the side gig that Isaiah and his friends take on is eventually wrapped up in a paragraph, which was quite a lackluster conclusion to that arc.
The characterization also continues to shine in this book, many of my favorite moments in this were when Isaiah was hanging out with his friends or his girlfriend Meg, living his life while also taking on these wacky cases. All the characters have distinct voices and personalities, and Barron has gotten a hold of his characters and what they should sound like. Isaiah's conflict between the violent brute and the poetic warrior continues to be an interesting struggle, though I wish there had been some more conflict due to his past.
There are also the supernatural bits that Barron flirts with in this book, and they are also comparably back and forth in terms of quality. The main mystery of the story becomes rather convoluted with the serial killer, but it kept pulling me back in with its flirtations with cosmic horror, which makes sense as Barron got his start as a writer of Lovecraftian and cosmic horror stories. I was reminded of the first season of True Detective when reading this, yet Barron hasn't quite mastered the balance of the tones that Pizzolatto did, and there is still work to be done. Cosmic horror and noir do create a nice fit with each other, and I wish more people would play with that particular genre blend more. But I think what Barron would do well with is some streamlining of the concepts that he's toying with here. It would go a long way to give this series focus.
All in all, I am left conflicted with this book. My hope is that Barron can streamline his ideas and find a singular focus that he can keep his attention on, and deliver on the potential that he's playing with here. If he manages to find the sweet spot in future volumes, I do think this would be a great literary counterpoint to Pizzolatto's classic season of television...
So in other words, this was a comparably mixed experience for me.
May 31, 2019
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 recently, Coleridge decides to start his investigation to learn about Lee and his connection to Morris Oestryke, a former criminal who was supposedly dead and had strange ties to the mafia. When Ray Anderson's name popped out of the woodwork, he connected the dots that led to interview other unsavory characters about the real criminal known as the Croatoan and his former crime sprees. In this pursuit, he chases Nic Royal, a potential link to the case and possible copycat, when he learns about who really was Oestryke under his presumed identity. In the end, it's a do-and-die situation on a battle royale between Isaiah and Oestryke's hardened demise.
May 1, 2023
A total baller. People who whined that book 1 wasn't cosmic horror, get your asses back for this installment. Or for people who avoided the series because they don't like crime/detective tales without the horror gimmick, just skip book 1 and start here. This is the Laird novel people have been wanting him to write, and nobody read it because they thought it was a CSI style cop adventure or some shit. Read this book or your neighbors will one day find your house abandoned and the letters CRO hacked into a tree out back.
July 29, 2019
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 novel with an instantly memorable antihero-hero and an almost paranormally creepy bad guy. It's also wryly observant and unabashedly literate. And this time out, Isaiah's case brushes up against enough ambient cosmic horror to make this OG Barron fan, well, fangirl. He's one of the best dark fiction writers working today. 5 stars.
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 novel with an instantly memorable antihero-hero and an almost paranormally creepy bad guy. It's also wryly observant and unabashedly literate. And this time out, Isaiah's case brushes up against enough ambient cosmic horror to make this OG Barron fan, well, fangirl. He's one of the best dark fiction writers working today. 5 stars.
August 20, 2024
As usual, some very cool lines from Mr. Barron. And some awesome references to Conan and barbarism. A very nasty killer mystery. Lots of old money, old power, old players. Isaiah is as good a character as before and he brings along a fun party of mobsters, a Marine, and Meg. Some storytelling choices were a bit odd, some philosophical ancientness mumbo jumbo beyond that of Coolridge's heritage. I can buy that and all for it when it's him, in him, of him. But it's hokie when it's only him imagining things other than what happens before they happen. That's a weird way to storytell. Less interested in pursuing book 3 now.
March 14, 2022
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, horribly mutilated – in a way that brings to mind the calling card of a serial killer everyone believes to have been dead for decades. But in Laird Barron’s world, things are rarely that simple… Those bodies used to belong to local mafia enforcers, and their boss hires Isaiah to figure out what happened exactly, sending him down a trail a bit weirder than anything he’s investigated before. Giving away more would spoil the fun, but there will be psycho killers, dames and violence aplenty.
Barron is clearly highly suspicious of big corporation and of the military, because they often hover at the periphery of his stories, and they never have good intentions. He also writes a lot of dialogue, which can feel heavy at times, but he knows what he is doing. I had longed for a glimpse at his very unique horror elements in the first Isaiah Coleridge book, and I was very happy that he cracked the door open for the Children of Old Leech to finally crawl through his detective story!
If you enjoy your mysteries dark and oozing – or if you are simply a fan of Barron, don’t miss out on this series!
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, horribly mutilated – in a way that brings to mind the calling card of a serial killer everyone believes to have been dead for decades. But in Laird Barron’s world, things are rarely that simple… Those bodies used to belong to local mafia enforcers, and their boss hires Isaiah to figure out what happened exactly, sending him down a trail a bit weirder than anything he’s investigated before. Giving away more would spoil the fun, but there will be psycho killers, dames and violence aplenty.
Barron is clearly highly suspicious of big corporation and of the military, because they often hover at the periphery of his stories, and they never have good intentions. He also writes a lot of dialogue, which can feel heavy at times, but he knows what he is doing. I had longed for a glimpse at his very unique horror elements in the first Isaiah Coleridge book, and I was very happy that he cracked the door open for the Children of Old Leech to finally crawl through his detective story!
If you enjoy your mysteries dark and oozing – or if you are simply a fan of Barron, don’t miss out on this series!
July 19, 2023
A lukewarm plot lessened greatly by stiff, unrealistic dialogue. Why not set this world in the past and be done with it? If not for the brilliant narrative, I'd write this off as a complete waste of time.
December 23, 2024
Isaiah Coleridge is back and caught up with serial killers, mobsters, veterans, mysterious corporations, you name it.
Hired by a mod capo he is in search of whoever is killing of associates of the mob.
How can this not be dangerous?
Isaiah is just as dangerous as everyone else which helps him find clues. How many will die along the way and who will survive is the question.
Is this Jack Reacher on steroids? Yes.
Hired by a mod capo he is in search of whoever is killing of associates of the mob.
How can this not be dangerous?
Isaiah is just as dangerous as everyone else which helps him find clues. How many will die along the way and who will survive is the question.
Is this Jack Reacher on steroids? Yes.
January 18, 2023
Kdyby všichni krimi autoři psali takovým jazykem, tak intoušský spisovatelé nemaj co žrát! Jen tak dál, nedočkavě vyhlížim trojku.
November 5, 2020
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 have had enough of Isaiah Coleridge.
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 have had enough of Isaiah Coleridge.
June 26, 2023
Unbelievably sinister. The reread shows me more of the noir web.
May 4, 2021
The best Coleridge and what turns out to be an exquisite horror in the end. Literally skin-crawling, just seeing the words: Croatoan.
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