Baby Blue

(Paperback)

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Description

The second in the Stratos Gazis series

Stratos is a walking contradiction: a hit man with a conscience, in this case charged with finding and killing the murderer of the adoptive father of Emma, a beautiful teenage magician who until recently was performing in the streets of Athens. The city, reeling from the economic crisis, provides the perfect backdrop to this dark thriller.

'The streets of Athens prove as mean as those of Raymond Chandler's L.A. in Koutsakis's brilliant second noir featuring Stratos Gazis (after 2017'sAthenian Blues) While the plotting matches James Ellroy's best work, Koutsakis does a better job of making the twists flow organically from the characters.'Publishers Weekly

'You know that 'second book problem' Well, the second in the Athens-based Stratos Gazis crime series defies the rule; it's better than the first.'Russell James from ShotsMag

Reviews

This is a tasty gulp-down thriller where there are more plot-twists than courses in a hot and spicy Greek meze. --CrimeTime

Equal parts intense action, clever detection, and a compelling survival story. --Booklist

Koutsakis makes his English-language debut with an intriguing crime novel. American film noir shaped Stratos's view of life, and Koutsakis effectively translates that half-lit, morally ambiguous milieu to seedy modern-day Athens. Noir fans will look forward to the next installment. --Publishers Weekly

With a narrator on the wrong side of the law who admires film noir, this dark novel will attract fans of international crime fiction with an edge. Admirers of Lawrence Block's Hit Man series may also want to try this book about a killer with a conscience. --Library Journal

It's hard to resist this hero, a freelance killer who describes himself as a kind of social worker, except I get properly paid. -- --Kirkus

The streets of Athens prove as mean as those of Raymond Chandler's L.A. in Koutsakis's brilliant second noir featuring Stratos Gazis...While the plotting matches James Ellroy's best work, Koutsakis does a better job of making the twists flow organically from the characters. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Like Jeff Lindsay's Dexter Morgan and Andrew Vachss' Burke, Athenian "problem solver" Stratos Gazis kills only those he feels deserve execution. An absorbing entry in this must-read hard-boiled series, which offers thoughtful characterization and a noir take on Athens' postcrisis underbelly. BOOKLIST

Author Bio

Pol Koutsakis, born in Crete in 1974, writes novels, plays and screenplays. Baby Blue is his second novel to be translated into English and follows on from the success of Athenian Blues, published by Bitter Lemon Press in 2017.