Blood in the Streets

By: Dion Baia

Narrated by: Peter Berkrot

The year is 1976. Veteran New Haven homicide detective Frank Suchy has finally learned to cope with the demons in his life and the daily pressure of "the job" - being exposed to every manner of death that could possibly befall someone - all the while celebrating his third year of sobriety.

But when his best friend's child is brutally murdered in broad daylight outside a downtown shopping mall, his world begins to deteriorate, bringing back the nightmares that he thought were locked away long ago. Recollections of his brief friendship with rock singer Jim Morrison (who he befriended at the 1967 New Haven concert where the singer was arrested onstage), and all the other terrible memories he had worked so hard to suppress...come pouring back.

To make matters worse, there are external forces that threaten Detective Suchy's well-being. Pressure from bureaucrats and the political elite to curtail any exposure of the case to the public in the wake of New Haven's recent massive Urban Renewal Project, and the simmering racial and social divide between the minority communities against the police department in particular, send Detective Suchy over the edge. He spirals out of control in a desperate race against time to solve this horrendous case, hoping to somehow redeem his soul-and the city's, for that matter - even if it means laying down his own life in the process. What Detective Suchy eventually uncovers is the seedy, horrifying underbelly of the 1970s.

©2018 Dion Baia (P)2018 Tantor

Step back in time to a 1970's procedural...

Blood in the Streets is a procedural trip back to the 1970's. There is so
Much going on in this book, for me it stirred up lots of memories, some good, some no so.
It begins with a detective called to the scene of a murdered teenage girl. It's his goddaughter. From there it becomes a mission to find who killed her and why. His journey takes you through New Haven, CT. Because it's the 70's there are no cellphones, home computers or internet. There is urban renewal, the Black Panthers, Yale, Jim Morrison and a music venue that still exists today called The Toads place. A detective goes rogue when he finds out what really happened and why.
I really enjoyed this book and hope to see more from this author.
Peter Berkrot does an outstanding job narrating.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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New Haven Confidential

Cinematic. Well written and plotted. Dark 70's noir. Will likely stay with me for sometime. Best novel I've (read/listened to) in quite sometime. Kudos to the author and narrator.

Awesome!

The story was great with likable characters. I enjoy the added history that parallels the plot and helps drive it forward.
I'm a fan of just enough description that you can picture what is being described with out being beat over the head with it. Some books take paragraphs or even pages trying to paint a visual picture and it can take you out of the story. Dion Baia does a great job of keeping the story flowing while setting the scene.
The narration was good and I think it was fitting for how I imagined the main character to sound.

All in all this was a great book!

Waste of Time

Amateurish. I would rather go back to reading some of Mickey Spillane's works. Makes John D. McDonald
read like Shakespeare.