Pigeon-Blood Red by Ed Duncan

Thank you to Book Publicity Services for providing me with a free copy of Pigeon-Blood Red in exchange for an an honest review.  
​All opinions are my own.

Pigeon-Blood Red takes readers into the world of heists, adultery, and double-crossers.  Written as a high-intensity crime thriller, this was totally unfamiliar territory for my reading tastes.  I was excited to see where hitman “Rico” Sanders would take me-and what he would do to whoever got in his way.  Filled with quick-tempers, each character finds themselves in the middle of a con gone wrong.  Ed Duncan writes a story that could easily be set in the early 1900’s rather than the early 2000’s, showing that some stories can stand the test of time.  This would be a good read for anyone who is a fan of the Bourne trilogy. There's action, adventure, shootouts, and crime-everything a thriller could ask for! You can see what I thought of the characters and the plot with the full review!

The plot follows Rico’s attempts to retrieve his gangster boss’s pigeon-blood red ruby necklace and send a message to whoever stole it in the first place.  As with any good crime thriller, the job doesn’t go as planned.  Rico is forced to to travel from Chicago to Honolulu, leaving him uncertain about what he will encounter.  Things continue to run amuck as two innocent bystanders ultimately get tangled up in Rico’s job.  I could really feel the emotion as tensions continued to rise.  With literal lives on the line, Duncan takes his readers for an edge-of-your-seat adventure across the country.

I’ve got to be honest, I was a bit confused for the first fifty pages or so.  The plot was intriguing, but the more I started to read the more confused I became.  It took me a good portion of the book to truly understand what was happening with each character and how they were connected to each other.  Duncan does a great job of immersing you in the story, but a bit of exposition to set the scene before jumping in media res would have done the plot some good.   Once I made all of the connections, there was no putting the book down!

There weren’t many redeeming qualities of most of the characters, and I’m not someone who typically needs to like the characters she is reading about.  This time, I think it would have been nice to have someone to root for.  If you’re someone who needs to have at least one relatable character, you may not want to pick this one up.  As a reader, I felt like I did a lot of the heavy lifting in connecting the dots for who a character was.   

Overall, I think this story worked well-especially considering it’s the first in a trilogy.  I imagine we will get more of a backstory and character development in the subsequent novels.  I gave it a solid three stars in the hopes that those who have more experience with this genre find it intriguing, but it wasn’t one that won me over into reading more.

TL/DR: If you’re looking or a modern gangster adventure-this book is for you.
Rating: 3/5 stars