Blood in the Cut
A Novel
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
“Blood in The Cut brims with dangerous energy in the face of existential entropy. A fantastic story.” —S. A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed
“A confident, hard-boiled debut. . . introducing a new talent.” —South Florida Sun Sentinel
Iggy Guerra is out of prison, but his homecoming is anything but smooth. His beloved mother is gone, his grief-stricken father Armando is deep in debt, and they are about to lose the butcher shop that has been in their family for generations.
Iggy must earn his father’s lost trust in order to save La Carnicería Guerra from the threats imposed by a new rival business, a vigilante activist, and big-game hunter Orin, who has dragged Armando into his dangerous money-making schemes deep in the Everglades, where more than secrets are buried. Iggy will wrestle with the beauty and the danger of the place he calls home as he tries to save his family—without losing himself forever.
Sharp as a butcher knife gleaming in the Miami sun, Alejandro Nodarse's Blood in the Cut opens onto a deeply personal vision of the streets and swamps of Miami, where the roots are crooked but strong as mangroves.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A man must reconcile his past mistakes in order to save his family’s future in this edgy crime thriller. After being released from his three-year prison stint early, Ignatius “Iggy” Guerra returns home to his Miami neighborhood to find his father angry and drunk and the family butcher shop about to fall victim to gentrification. So when a shady local Everglades rancher offers him a job to help track down an elusive ecoterrorist, Iggy knows this opportunity could save his family—that is, if it doesn’t pull them deeper into the swamp. With his razor-sharp prose and vivid characterizations, author Alejandro Nodarse ushers in an exciting new era of Florida noir. We were totally pulled in by his immersive style, putting us right inside Iggy’s head. Blood in the Cut is an exhilarating trip to the dark corners of the Sunshine State.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A Cuban American ex-con fights to hold his family together in Nodarse's standout debut. After being released from prison following a three-year drug sentence, Iggy Guerra returns to Miami's Little Havana neighborhood with hopes of reconnecting with his family and putting the past behind him. With his mother's recent death in an auto accident, however, plus his father's mounting debt, his younger brother's intentions of quitting high school, and the family butcher shop on the brink of closing under pressure from an arrogant competitor, Iggy finds his family in shambles. All responsibility falls on him, it seems, to fix the mess. Things become even more complicated when Iggy's father is arrested for butchering illegally killed game for an unscrupulous Everglades rancher. Then Iggy discovers that his mother's death may not have been an accident, and he's compelled to seek street justice against her killer without ending up back behind bars. Nodarse draws taut suspense from intermingling the fate of the butcher shop, Iggy's father's shady dealings, and the mystery of his mother's death, tying everything together with a stirring conclusion. He enhances the action with indelible descriptions of the Florida setting that underline the state's intoxicating blend of beauty and danger. S.A. Cosby fans, take note: this jagged Southern neo-noir is not to be missed.
