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A review by nate_s
Black Mountain by Laird Barron
5.0
I have a goal of reading at least one entry from every popular (and some not so) detective/crime solver/cop/spy who has a book series. Jack Reacher, Spenser, Easy Rawlins, George Smiley, etc.
In the roll call of these characters, Laird Barron's Isaiah Coleridge is not well-known. In fact, judging by Goodreads review numbers (ranging from 250-1200 reviews), he's practical unheard of. This is a shame, but also frankly very surprising. Because these books are damn good in every way.
Laird Barron is an impeccable writer. His dialogue cuts like a blade. His characters are smartly drawn; highly literate, wise, foolish, impulsive, calculating, sympathetic, despicable, but always utterly credible. Barron creates story panoramas with the edges eaten away by a nameless evil, and still they manage to be some of the funniest books in the genre. I laugh out loud often. Mobster slang and detective lingo abounds but stays fresh. His brooding atmospheres loom over the plot like tangible doom. Isaiah Coleridge is a man fleeing a cold and terrible past (nothing new there); beyond his own demons waits a circle of criminals, sociopaths, corrupt corporations, wiseguys, questionable gov't entities, hit men, cult members, femme fatales, Cosa Nostra heavies, and serial killers all clawing to get their share by any means necessary. But beyond that is still another layer- the whisper of dark powers and unspeakable, ancient terrors just beyond sight. Occasionally consorted with but whose nature is only guessed at, like a camera panning across a landscape only to jolt backwards, a moment too late to see what caused the rustle in the bushes. In the Coleridge stories, I'm routinely led to wonder at what moment something will burst forth in its hideous anti-glory for all to see, like Cthulhu rising from the deep.
Barron made his initial mark in the Lovecraftian cosmic horror genre with works like The Croning (which remains my favorite novel of his) and a number of short story collections. The Isaiah Coleridge series of hard-boiled detective novels might seem on the surface to be a departure form this. That notion is quickly dispelled. The terror at the core of reality is more subtle in the Coleridge books, but it shapes their character no less.
This, I reckon, is how you bring an unreached audience under your spell. I'm calling it now- Isaiah Coleridge will be on the big or small screen soon enough. These books ought to be at least as popular as Jack Reacher. Give it a few more installments.
In the roll call of these characters, Laird Barron's Isaiah Coleridge is not well-known. In fact, judging by Goodreads review numbers (ranging from 250-1200 reviews), he's practical unheard of. This is a shame, but also frankly very surprising. Because these books are damn good in every way.
Laird Barron is an impeccable writer. His dialogue cuts like a blade. His characters are smartly drawn; highly literate, wise, foolish, impulsive, calculating, sympathetic, despicable, but always utterly credible. Barron creates story panoramas with the edges eaten away by a nameless evil, and still they manage to be some of the funniest books in the genre. I laugh out loud often. Mobster slang and detective lingo abounds but stays fresh. His brooding atmospheres loom over the plot like tangible doom. Isaiah Coleridge is a man fleeing a cold and terrible past (nothing new there); beyond his own demons waits a circle of criminals, sociopaths, corrupt corporations, wiseguys, questionable gov't entities, hit men, cult members, femme fatales, Cosa Nostra heavies, and serial killers all clawing to get their share by any means necessary. But beyond that is still another layer- the whisper of dark powers and unspeakable, ancient terrors just beyond sight. Occasionally consorted with but whose nature is only guessed at, like a camera panning across a landscape only to jolt backwards, a moment too late to see what caused the rustle in the bushes. In the Coleridge stories, I'm routinely led to wonder at what moment something will burst forth in its hideous anti-glory for all to see, like Cthulhu rising from the deep.
Barron made his initial mark in the Lovecraftian cosmic horror genre with works like The Croning (which remains my favorite novel of his) and a number of short story collections. The Isaiah Coleridge series of hard-boiled detective novels might seem on the surface to be a departure form this. That notion is quickly dispelled. The terror at the core of reality is more subtle in the Coleridge books, but it shapes their character no less.
This, I reckon, is how you bring an unreached audience under your spell. I'm calling it now- Isaiah Coleridge will be on the big or small screen soon enough. These books ought to be at least as popular as Jack Reacher. Give it a few more installments.