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BLOOD AND MASCARA

An Independent Book Review Best Book of 2024

Iris is watching Bronze.

Bronze is following Carolyn.

Carolyn is sleeping with Billy.

Now Billy is dead and a killer is coming for them all.

Washington, DC, 1997:

A city stumbling toward recovery after a decade of violence, drugs, AIDS, and exodus. Bronze Goldberg—a soft-boiled private detective in a hard-boiled world—scrapes out a living stalking the steps of cheating spouses while bearing the trauma of the past like an open wound. But his latest assignment, surveilling the indiscretions of a stunning femme fatale, has entangled him in the murder of an up-and-coming congressman and made him the target of an unstoppable assassin. Meanwhile, the spiraling chaos of Bronze’s dangerous adventures has attracted the obsessive attention of his landlord, Iris Margaryan, a brilliant romance novelist who may hold the missing piece in the puzzle of Bronze’s fatal past. Can Bronze survive long enough to reach the ultimate truth?

A gripping noir mystery—both intensely provocative and darkly thrilling—Blood and Mascara descends into the depths of the human soul before exploding in an ending too shocking to ever forget.

Praise for Blood and Mascara

"Krainin elevates contemporary noir with this gritty, hard-hitting thriller that will have readers anxiously awaiting a sequel. Highly recommended." -BestThrillers.com

“This one is art.” -A Midlife Wife

"Through pitch-perfect PI dialogue and a plot packed with political duplicity, sleaze, and casual violence, Krainin presents a fiendish murder mystery that shines a light on both the best and worst of humanity... a thrilling whodunit." -Independent Book Review (starred review)

"One of the book's standout features is its gorgeous prose, which provides a striking contrast to the fast-paced crime narrative." -Underrated Reads

"Blood and Mascara is a tense and gripping crime thriller... well paced and engrossing, the contrast between Bronze's crime-riddled world and Margaryan's realm of romantic fiction proves to be a winning combination... the acute attention to detail infuses the explosive storyline with an inspiring and magnetic intensity." -The BookLife Prize

"In Colin Krainin's haunting thriller Blood and Mascara, an endearing but broken detective is driven to stop a ruthless assassin." -Foreword Clarion Reviews

What readers on Goodreads are saying:

“READ. THIS BOOK. Best debut of 2024.”

“The writing is superb and niftily constructed paragraphs abound much like candlelit cities after dark. It all leads to a crash-bang of an ending where action rules and the exhaustive chase leaves you breathless.”

“This is gritty noir fiction at its best.”

“I stayed up until 4 am to finish it. I just couldn’t think of sleep until I found out what happened. Listening to the actual thoughts of the individuals….talk about character development, oh yes. And as an added bonus, it provoked me to think deep thoughts. I won’t take philosophy straight up but I can be seduced into it from a flanking position. I’d highly recommend this book. When I finished, I felt it one of the best mystery/thrillers I’d read in a couple of decades and that’s up against most of the bestsellers.”

“So many books claim to be noir and yet so seldom are. This book truly is. Words like gritty, dark and seamy don't even come close to describing the story contained within these pages. At its deepest core, this book left me with a feeling of revulsion, fear, despair, anger, pity and grief, while simultaneously imbuing me with an overwhelming urge to cry, a sense of melancholy, and yet a lingering and soaring spirit of hopefulness. That is the mark of great noir. The heart of this book is its people and all it takes is a sentence or two and you get a sense of their entire life, hopes, dreams and future, which is what draws you in and will keep you hooked. I can't say enough good things about this author and can only hope he goes on to write more stories in this vein. A truly great work.”

“Oh my gosh! This is a wonderfully written intense story that will capture you on the very first page! I fell in love with the character Bronze and hope to hear more about him in a future book! Filled with lots of twists and turns, murder and mayhem, this detailed woven story kept me on the edge of my seat and there were times I could not catch my breath! Politics, espionage, murder, secrets, this book has it all! This is a real page turner and a must must read!”

“Wow, this is one of the best books I have read in a long time! It is a well crafted plot with great character development topped off with great writing. I could really feel the tension or the emotion of the moment and reveled in the descriptive language.”

“This book doesn’t succumb to what you expect in a stereotypical mystery/thriller. Such as unbelievable twists and turns or a plodding pace or stupid people making stupid decisions or lack of character development - these characters and the events taking place leap fervently off the pages and I kept wishing they were real. Ok maybe not the scary stuff but the other ones.”

“The writing is great, fluid and sucked me in, the characters were relatable and by the end, I felt like I knew each one as I would know a friend. The plot is clever, slowly but beautifully unfolding.”