(no title)

Home

1

[Site header art courtesy of G.P. Putnam’s Sons.]

Black Mountain

Ex-mob enforcer Isaiah Coleridge 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…

“Isaiah Coleridge [is] an intimidating presence…” —Marilyn Stasio for The New York Times Book Review

“…as much Bram Stoker as Lawrence Block.” –Tom Nolan for The Wall Street Journal

“Black Mountain is a crime-horror hybrid that takes the most entertaining elements of both genres and mixes them into something new that pushes the boundaries of contemporary crime fiction.” Gabino Iglesias for the Los Angeles Review of Books

“Like a lyricist, Laird Barron excels at manipulating the tones and cadence of language. Like a Gothic novelist, the mood he creates is often bleak.” –Bruce DeSilva for the Associated Press

“Expertly blending crime and horror, [Barron’s] non-supernatural horrors become cosmic/existential in scope and feel, similar to Peter Straub’s genius novels KOKO, [and] THE THROAT.” Paul Tremblay, bestselling author of The Cabin at the End of the World

“Barron’s second novel featuring retired mob strongman Isaiah Coleridge (after 2018’s Blood Standard) is as nasty as a cornered pit viper—and its plot is about as sinuous.” Publishers Weekly

“For all the darkness in Black Mountain, it has a hero who burns bright.” Heather Seggel for BookPage

“Coleridge is a large, unbelievably strong, scarred man—a thug, yes, but a thinking-person’s thug…Readers with a tolerance for violence will want to meet him.”—Booklist (starred review)