Blood Standard Release Date
11September 12, 2017 by Laird
Blood Standard, first in a series about ex-contract hitter, Isaiah Coleridge, will arrive toward the end of May, 2018. I owe a debt of gratitude to a lot of people, but today I want to thank my agent Janet Reid for her support and dedication,and Sara Minnich at G.P. Putnam’s Sons for acquiring this novel and its follow-up.
Preorders are available. I’ve linked to Amazon for convenience, but I encourage folks to support local bookstores and your favorite independent sellers. Click here to check out a list of alternatives at the Penguin site.
Thanks, everybody. More soon.
Award-winning author Laird Barron makes his crime fiction debut with a novel set in the underbelly of upstate New York that’s as hardboiled and punchy as a swift right hook to the jaw–a classic noir for fans of James Ellroy and John D. Macdonald.
Isaiah Coleridge is a mob enforcer in Alaska–he’s tough, seen a lot, and dished out more. But when he forcibly ends the moneymaking scheme of a made man, he gets in the kind of trouble that can lead to a bullet behind the ear. Saved by the grace of his boss and exiled to upstate New York, Isaiah begins a new life, a quiet life without gunshots or explosions. Except a teenage girl disappears, and Isaiah isn’t one to let that slip by. And delving into the underworld to track this missing girl will get him exactly the kind of notice he was warned to avoid.
“Rendered in icy strokes of prose, Laird Barron’s Blood Standard is a remarkably self-assured crime novel—at once explosive and intimate, with a tightly wound plot and wonderfully realized characters. And then there’s Barron’s hero, Isaiah Coleridge. He’s got a dead dog named Achilles and bits of Beowulf on his breath and in his teeth. Needless to say, there’s not too many like him.”—Michael Harvey, author of Brighton and The Chicago Way
image via G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Arriving May 29, 2018
lairdbarron.wordpress.com 
Looks great. Can’t wait for this. It’s always a great day when I hear new work announced from you.
Thank you.
[…] won’t be at the fest, but I am looking forward to Laird Barron’s new crime novel BLOOD STANDARD, out in March 2018. He’s one of my favorite short story writers, and his novel THE CRONING […]
Reblogged this on Philip Fracassi and commented:
New Laird Barron en route from Putnam — May 2018 — BLOOD STANDARD, the first in a series.
This is hands-down THE Must-Get title of 2018.
Yeah!! A new Barron novel!! Is this a straightforward crime/noir novel? Or does it cross over into the supernatural at all? I’ve often thought in reading your noir-ish horror tales that you could easily slide over into the classic non-supernatural stuff. So looking forward to this!
Thank you. It exists in the same universe as many of my other stories, and it edges very close to horror at points, but this is hardcore crime/noir at the heart.
Yes! So looking forward to this!
Great news! Could this the same Isaiah Coleridge who allegedly died in a theme park accident?! Can’t wait to find out. Roll on May 2018!
If not in this universe, perhaps the next one over…
Any day when I have a new Laird Barron book in my hands is a happy day indeed. I absolutely loved The Light is the Darkness and X’s for Eyes. Is this the beginning of an Isaiah Coleridge series? Poor bastard.
It is. Coleridge has a rocky row to hoe.