A Good Rush of Blood is bold and bloody grit lit, and it hits like a hammer.
Creeley Nash is almost forty, a drug runner living in Portland, Oregon. In her teens, she ran away from Palm Springs, leaving her mom and the motel where they’d been living so her mom could turn tricks. A drug run brings Creeley back to Palm Springs, where new information about her mom throws her life off balance.
Phillips’ prose is solid (Another guitar riff burned through the night, seemed to call forth some devil from the deep, or from another dimension.), and I like how he blends fragments with complete sentences so the writing feels urgent. For example:
Tweakers.
Addicts.
Mutts.
Douchebags.
Creeley had seen it all and these two fucks might be the worst.
I especially enjoyed the chapters labeled History Lessons that shed light on why Creeley ran away. These quieter moments are a reprieve from the action, and let the reader understand Creeley in a more intimate way.
In addition to Creeley, there’s a Palm Springs detective (Monty), a librarian with a mohawk (Amber), a gay man going through a divorce (Kimmie), a childhood friend (Paul), and Creeley’s employer (Animal). It’s quite the cast of characters.
This book is filled with drugs, booze, violence, and wit, but the story is about the draw family has on you, even when you don’t want anything to do with them. And Creeley learns you can’t run forever.
Review by Joel Nedecky
Punk Noir Press 