Average and Not

Former mob enforcer and hitman Isaiah Coleridge is making a new life for himself in upstate New York. Free from the danger his former associates will want to pay him the traditional "severance package" of their business, he's used some of his shadier contacts to become and officially licensed private investigator and takes actual legitimate cases. Of course, he still knows -- and is known by -- members of the extended criminal outfit for whom he used to work, and he knows that one way to stay on their good side is to help them when they ask for favors. A local boss calls in one such marker when a low-level criminal turns up dead and decapitated by weapons that had been used on a previous victim. The similarities are enough that coincidence isn't enough to explain them, so Isaiah is called on to find out what does explain them. Isaiah's hunt will lead him into parts of his own past as well as the history of the area's underworld, and the journey may leave him without a future.

Black Mountain is Laird Barron's second outing with Isaiah, and his second large-scale work outside his usual horror genre. He doesn't have to spend as much time setting the stage and introducing cast members, allowing him to expand the story and exploration of what kind of man Isaiah is. The introspection offers some of the more interesting sections of the book, as Isaiah remembers how he learned some of the ins and outs of mayhem and murder for hire from an interesting mentor. Barron's given Isaiah the traditional gumshoe's wry self-regard, especially as he tries to figure out just what it is that made him decide not to do mayhem and murder anymore. The choice bemuses and even amuses him a little.

But since Mountain doesn't need to introduce the supporting cast it seems as though Barron really doesn't know what to do with them, offering them a few repeated cameos before shuffling them to the side. The actual mystery that drives the plot for the novel winds up branching out a few many times, leaving it tough to figure out what happened, what's happening as it's wrapping up and what the heck just happened. The loss of focus could be Barron finding his stride in the format and it's to be hoped he gets a handle on it, because Isaiah is an interesting character with a funny voice and intriguing story. Detective noir fiction is filled with knights that have some tarnish on their shining armor, but Isaiah offers the twist of one who's learning that there may be some shine under the coat of tarnish he's worn for years -- and his surprise at the path of discovery.

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As John Sandford has moved Lucas Davenport solidly into the life of a United States Marshal, some of the "Prey" series featuring him have taken on similar characteristics as Lucas chases down a fugitive or fugitives and runs them to ground. That's not necessarily a formula rut for Sandford, who has shown an ability to add characters and atmosphere to the mix well enough to keep the action moving and make a good yarn.

But in Neon Prey, the 29th book in the series, nearly every gift Sandford has deployed to keep interest and to distinguish his chase novels deserts him as he presents a disconnected series of set pieces, needlessly gruesome violence and cruelty and a set of some of the most repugnant villains he's ever spilled onto a page -- with the most repugnant not even really getting the comeuppance the story merits. Each of several encounters between the Marshals and the criminals winds up inconclusively -- mostly because it feels like Sandford took a look at his page count and realized he needed to keep going in order to hit novel length.

One of Sandford's major strengths has been his willingness to have some of Davenport's criminal antagonists be, for want of a better word, stupid. Often lowlifes elevated to a stage far past their station by pure dumb bad luck, they stay steps ahead of their pursuit not through any innate intelligence or skill -- just luck. And Sandford has usually spent the time with his antagonists to show how dumb they are. Even if they have backstory that might make them sympathetic, we can see how they've freely made the wrong choice time and time again in pursuit of what seems to be the shortcut to the good life.

Time spent with this particular gang, though, reminds me more of a quote I can't find now, by a former Gawker staffer ruminating about his work. It was something about how their whole method of operating was to stick their hands down into the worst muck they could find, lift it up in front of people and saying, "Look at this!" Nearly every interlude with the bad guys of Neon Prey felt like that, now and then with the added yechh of Sandford attempting to be funny with them.

It's tempting to wish that Neon Prey had been an e-book or Kindle format only, so that it could be recalled and all traces of its existence erased. But that might let Sandford off the hook when fans said, "Hope you try harder next time," so I guess I'll use my Infinity Gauntlet snap for something else.