I recently started reading a detective series that's set in our beloved Upset err I mean Upstate NY.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/s...leridge-novel/
It's about a mob enforcer out in Alaska named Isiah Coleridge, who fucks up big time when he puts a made man in the hospital after witnessing the Mafiaso abusing animals. Favors are called in so instead of getting a bullet behind the ear, he's excommunicated and banished to Hudson Valley. When a local teenage girl goes missing, Coleridge puts his old crime contacts to good use and tries to find her. Along the way, he busts heads and crosses paths with strippers, skinheads, hillbillies and even the Feds.
While I found the ending to be somewhat of a letdown, overall I really enjoyed the first book. It's very well written with an interesting main character, a half-Maori army brat turned mob henchman who's now on the road to redemption. He's a huge smartass too, my favorite kind of protagonist.
There are also a lot of cool allusions to Greek and Roman Mythology. Coleridge sees himself as a modern day Hercules or Odysseus on a quest, his Achilles heel is literally a dog named Achilles, there's a mobster called Apollo and even a character named after Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom. Except this one isn't a hot, tattooed Blonde.
I finished the second book this afternoon which begins as a detective story but ends as a horror story, with Coleridge on the hunt for an elusive mafia hitman who moonlights as a serial killer of hookers. Really creepy stuff. Albany and Buffalo also get shout outs in the book.
I highly recommend the series to fans of hardboiled crime fiction about tough guys and femme fatales. Hopefully Syracuse and Rochester make an appearance in future novels.
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