From the Publisher
Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of Summer
Publishers Weekly starred review
CrimeReads’s Most Anticipated Crime Books of the Summer
“Alejandro Nodarse delivers a confident, hard-boiled debut about gentrification, family ties, Cuban-American culture, and the changing landscape of Miami. . . Gripping neo-noir. . . with such an authentic look at Miami that readers will want to visit these neighborhoods. . . An intriguing hard-boiled novel introducing a new talent.”
—South Florida Sun Sentinel
“A Miami crime-thriller that keeps the pressure on from its opening chapter to its closing words. . . Fast cars, big guns and over-the-top violence are commonplace, and often culminate in thrilling and satisfyingly vengeful scenes. . . Like the best crime thrillers, Blood thrives because of its continuous ability to surprise — through its very last pages.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“A standout debut. . . 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.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Heat practically radiates off the page. . . With indelible descriptions of its Miami setting and a three-dimensional look at life in the city’s Little Havana neighborhood, this hard-nosed thriller heralds the arrival of a major new talent.”
—Publishers Weekly, Best Mystery/Thriller Books of Summer
“A galvanizing debut, filled with crackling danger and atmosphere, with the sights and sounds of Miami we don’t often see.”
—BookTrib
“Alejandro Nodarse's Blood in the Cut brings to vivid life a Cuban-American world that has been invisible in literature—until now. A place of illegal hunters and deadly swamps, of competing allegiances and the violences at the brutal heart of exile. Mr. Nodarse writes with rare insight, sensitivity, and beauty. An extraordinary debut!"
—Cristina García, author of Dreaming in Cuban, a finalist for the National Book Award
“Blood in The Cut brims with dangerous energy in the face of existential entropy. Alejandro Nodarse creates an immediately relatable scenario with a young man returning from prison then turns the whole narrative on its head in the best ways. A fantastic story.”
—S. A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed
“Vivid, beautiful, raw and thrilling. Blood In The Cut is richly drawn, haunting and authentic. I loved it.”
—Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End
“Assured debut. . . Nodarse conjures up a captivating vision of life in Miami, with shady operators around every corner and family legacies in peril. Nodarse is a writer of great promise, and readers will be clamoring for a follow-up.”
—CrimeReads
“Set in the Everglades, Nodarse's debut has a rich sense of place, with descriptions of the lush landscape, crocodile encounters, and tropical weather giving readers a vivid mind’s-eye viewpoint. . . For readers who like their thrillers literary and atmospheric.”
—Booklist
“Blood in the Cut is a gripping crime novel that starkly contrasts the tropical backdrop of South Florida with the darkest elements of great noir. Alejandro Nodarse is a true rising star.”
—Alex Segura, bestselling author of Secret Identity and the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series
“Set in the Florida everglades where people disappear without a trace and alligators act as clean-up men, Alejandro Nodarse’s Blood in the Cut is an intense and unflinching look at both the best and the worst of human nature; a harrowing, compelling, insightful, and deeply moving exploration of justice versus vengeance and the ephemeral nature of second chances. A stunning new voice in crime fiction, I predict we’ll be reading Nodarse for a very long time.”
—Karen Dionne, #1 international bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter and The Wicked Sister
“Cinematic and immersive, with true emotional heft, Blood in the Cut is a ferocious examination of family wounds and loyalty, of second chances scraped from the maw of a dangerous wilderness. Alejandro Nodarse has crafted a novel the way one rebuilds a classic muscle car: one propulsive piece at a time until it flies. I'll hold the Guerra family in my heart for a very long time.”
—Katie Gutierrez, bestselling author of More Than You'll Ever Know
“A galvanizing debut, filled with crackling danger and atmosphere, with the sights and sounds of Miami we don’t often see.”
—BookTrib
“Dark drama of a family in turmoil. . . A well-written and absorbing debut novel from an author worth watching.”
—Deadly Pleasures
Kirkus Reviews
2024-03-23
A young Cuban American man just released from prison returns home only to stumble into a world of illegal hunting and murder.
You will need a strong stomach to enter the brutal world of game hunting, illegal slaughterhouses, and human violence depicted in Nodarse’s first novel. Set on the darkest edges of modern-day Miami, the book follows the path of Ignacio “Iggy” Guerra, who has just been released from prison after having been arrested for selling oxycodone he stole from his mother’s pharmacy. Now, three years later, Iggy is returning home to a working-class Cuban American neighborhood that is significantly different from what it was when he left. His beloved mother is dead, the victim of a hit-and-run driver. The pharmacy is gone. His angry, embittered father is drinking too much and drowning in debt. A shiny new competitor is threatening his father’s butcher shop, and when Iggy finds his father alone one night, covered in blood, he really begins to worry. What exactly is he butchering? His father won’t talk, but his connection to a shady big-game hunter leads Iggy into a dangerous mission in the Everglades—and to the truth about what happened to his mother. Nodarse creates an unsettling atmosphere and sheds some light on real Miami problems, the cost of gentrification among them, but the book’s overwhelming machismo doesn’t allow for much interesting character development. Villains talk like cartoon bad guys, and the question of how far Iggy will go for vengeance falls flat because the reader is never invested enough in his redemption to care. The various mysteries fueling the story aren’t all that hard to figure out, and a side plot involving a rogue animal activist develops too awkwardly to make much impact. Not even an impromptu street race through the Everglades can make up for the missteps.
A bloody, macho redemption story that never quite takes off.
