WORSE ANGELS
by Laird Barron
When private investigator and former mob guy Isaiah Coleridge is hired to look into the suspicious death of a man's nephew, he will discover layers of corruption beneath the power of politicians.
Ex–NYPD cop Badja Adeyemi had been the bodyguard for Gerald Redlick, a businessman who's now a U.S. senator. When Redlick’s company came under scrutiny for corrupt doings, Adeyemi too became a suspect. Now, before he gets sent to prison, Adeyemi wants to ease his sister's mind by having Coleridge investigate the death of her son at a supercollider project site several years earlier. This will lead the tough and tough-talking Coleridge and his equally tough associate, Lionel Robard, to small towns and people with big egos, bigger payrolls, and absolutely zero scruples about doing whatever it takes to win. Although author Barron displays an ability to move along the multilayered plot, his frequently florid prose slows things down, especially when Coleridge takes a philosophical turn: “Reality is a frequency, time is a ring, and gravity bleeds through a membrane that cocoons this universe.”
It will take a reader even tougher than the protagonist to hold on till the end of this story.